


Ravenous

by intermittent_laziness



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Coming of Age, Deviates From Canon, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Male Eivor (Assassin's Creed), Masturbation, Mild Touch-Starved, Mutual Pining, Praise Kink, Sigurd is a tootsie pop hard on the outside soft on the inside, Slow Burn, Slower burn than I thought, mild possessive behavior, probably not totally historically accurate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:22:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 41,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28496745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intermittent_laziness/pseuds/intermittent_laziness
Summary: Sigurd Styrbjornson is 22 winters old when he realizes that the deep, nagging feeling below his breast bone isn't guilt or anxiety. It's want.  And it's a want for something he's not so sure he can have.________Eivor Varinsson is no longer the ropey boy he used to be, and the future he longs for, one filled with revenge and glory by his brother's side, is as scary as it is exciting.  Visions of ice and fangs show him what he lost once, but remind him of what's still left to lose should he fail at becoming the fierce warrior he knows he must become.________Sigurd and Eivor grapple with the inevitable changes in both their lives and begin questioning the nature of their relationship, as well as what they each may need to sacrifice when faced the realities of their ambitions.________A study of characters and relationships told through alternating perspectives.  And it's a slow burn, guys.  Bear with these cutie idiots.
Relationships: Eivor/Sigurd Styrbjornson
Comments: 100
Kudos: 254





	1. Sigurd

**Author's Note:**

> UPDATE: 3/9/21
> 
> I'm holding the last chapter back an extra week. I want to post it with the first batch of revised chapters (probably the first 4-5). I actually went a little crazy and added some fairly substantial revisions. The main story points has been altered, but there are new scenes/flashbacks that I've added and I'm trying to flesh out the relationship between Styrbjorn and Sigurd a bit more. Hopefully last chapter will go on Friday this week!!!
> 
> I have been absolutely stunned by all of the kind words and encouragement I've received while writing this. I truly cannot thank you all enough. I have so enjoyed my time with this and cannot wait to share more!

#  **01**

##  _ Sigurd _

Sigurd Styrbjornson was 21 winters old when he realized his little brother had become a man.

Not a brother by blood, but a brother by circumstance, Eivor had been the heliocentric point around which everything else in Sigurd’s life revolved since his own father had formally adopted him after the death of his parents eight years earlier. Eivor and Sigurd had been inseparable ever since, aside from the occasional raiding party that called Sigurd away from their homestead in Fornburg.

The  _ vikingr _ had just returned from a series of such raids which had kept him away for almost a year, only to find that the ropey boy he’d left behind had changed.

Sigurd found himself watching from the shadows of the thatched awning of the brewer’s hut as Eivor practiced his axe throwing against a crude effigy of an enemy warrior. Straw bound tightly with rope made up the arms and legs and a burlap sack stuffed with leaves and twigs, wrapped around a sturdy log, formed the body; an old helmet perched atop a bulbous cloth head completed the silly looking thing. 

He chuckled at the almost comical  _ whump _ of the axe as it found home, the blade lodging itself in the wood beneath the leaves and burlap. 

How many moons had it been? Nine, perhaps ten. He’d lost count of how many full moons he’d watched crest the mountains after the third or fourth. Long enough to see the last day of summer yield to a wet harvest and the last vestiges of a long harsh winter begrudgingly relent to a timid spring. While snow still clung to the world around him, the eaves of the longhouse were bare and dry, the thatching of the huts drying in the fresh spring sun. Only the shaded places and spots where wind had mounded the snow remained, now dingy with mud. 

Months of raiding Kjotve’s clans’ smaller holdings.  _ Table scraps _ , thought Siguard when he saw the measly haul. Some food, a few good blades and a modest chest of hacksilver were their only spoils. The raiding party had had much more luck with hunting and returned home with longships laden with elk, wolf and rabbit pelts, antlers for crafting weapon hilts and meat enough to last through late summer.

Even though everything around him felt the same–the way the smell of fresh baked bread and the dank stench of manure from the stables fought with one another, and the cry of sea birds overhead mixed with mothers calling their children in for food were just as he’d left them, somehow, the young man before him seemed an anomaly. Like time had forgotten all but him.

The awkward lank of Eivor’s youth had been replaced with the makings of strong, bold,  _ drengr  _ stock. The coltishness of his figure now sturdier, fuller and more certain in his movements.

Sigurd watched Eivor pick up another axe. He was wearing a simple tunic, belted at his slim waist. He thought he caught a glimpse of dark ink just beneath the short sleeve on Eivor’s weapon hand that had not been there when he’d left. He made a mental note to ask about it later. The greyish blue of Eivor’s tunic set his brilliant blonde hair alight, now shoulder length and gathered into a short ponytail at the nape of his neck. 

The  _ vikingr _ ’s finger twitched at the thought of brushing the stray lock of hair that had fallen from its binding back behind that flushed pink ear…

_ Whump.  _

Sigurd blinked, and with a shake of his wild, copper-haired head, looked down at his feet before pushing himself away from the post he had been leaning against, emerging from the cool shadows into the brilliant early spring sun.

Eivor, lost in his own world, did not notice his presence as Sigurd approached. He already had another axe in hand, ready to let it fly, arm raised, muscles taught.

“You are much improved, little raven,” Sigurd called just as Eivor’s arm snapped forward like a bow string, the gleaming axe whining through the air as it hurtled nose over tail toward it’s mark. But instead of the dull  _ whump  _ of the blade embedding into the log, the blade traveled too far left and instead caught the side of the burlap sack awkwardly, catching the fabric and falling dully to the muddy ground.

Eivor whirled around in a flash of blue, ready to spring upon whoever had distracted him. Sigurd caught the moment of realization in the younger man’s eyes and had only time for half a breath before it was summarily knocked right back out of him with the force of Eivor’s embrace.

“Sigurd, brother!”

Sigurd’s arms returned the warm embrace, and he noted, with mild annoyance, that their height difference had closed a bit more, yet again. 

Eivor was warm. Sigurd could feel the heat coming off of his sweat slicked arms and neck; could smell the tang of sweat combined with the last lingering smell of cold air and last night’s fire. 

“I was not expecting you back for at least another moon,” Eivor mumbled into his brother’s shoulder, face buried in the fox furs fastened around Sigurd's throat. 

“Well, word of your terrible throwing form made its way all the way across the sea and I had to come see it for myself,” he replied sarcastically. 

He pushed Eivor back playfully, striking a defensive stance, welcoming a friendly retaliation. 

Eivor stumbled but found his footing quickly.

“I find my technique serves me well when I’m not being distracted by great, oafish half-wits.”

Eivor raised an eyebrow. He faked right then lunged forward at the larger man, trying to bowl him over into the mud.

Sigurd intercepted him, sidestepping enough to allow Eivor’s arms to wrap around his waist, and raising his arm so that his brother's head was forced into a playful headlock. He dug his heels in, deftly absorbing the impact of Eivor’s charge. 

He chuckled as Eivor pounded on his back trying to free himself, noting that he had to work much harder to hold his brother in place than he anticipated.

After a few moments of struggle, Eivor changed his tactics, suddenly going limp in Sigurd’s arms. Not expecting the sudden, full, dead weight of his brother, Sigurd stumbled, knees buckling slightly. 

“What have they been feeding you?” Sigurd grunted out, trying to maintain his balance.

“What are you implying, dear brother?” Eivor retorted haughtily from underneath Sigurd’s cloak where his head remained stuck in his vice-like headlock.

“Nothing at all! Just that you are not the slip of parchment you were when I left,” Sigurd mused. 

He gave one final squeeze of his arm and eased the headlock, allowing Eivor to push backwards and find his balance.

“You were gone for a while. Things change quickly around here.”

Sigurd smiled, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

“So it seems.”

There was a moment of silence between them, the acknowledgement of Sigurd’s absence weighed against how much of his little brother's training he’d apparently missed, how he’d lost a chance to help form the warrior he would become. Even though Sigurd had spent much of his life teaching Eivor all the proper ways to be a viking, he had always looked forward to the day when they could spar as real men, train in earnest together. 

A sort of guilt crept into his heart, then. He imagined Eivor on his own throwing axes at straw men for hours on end, saw him sparring with another, being shown techniques that weren’t his own, hands that were not his wrapping a wound from an ill-timed parry. 

The guilt turned to jealousy, coiling around the muscle at the top of his stomach. Had Eivor not been suddenly distracted by the fishmonger’s son calling his name, he might have seen the storm cloud cross his brother's eyes, the strange darkness that suddenly overtook his thoughts. 

“Coming!” Eivor called. 

“Algson, he’s been training with me and Vil–“

“No. That’s my job, now I’m returned. There will be no more training with… whatever  _ that _ is,” Sigurd interrupted flatly.

Eivor gave Sigurd a disapproving look, “What? Algson? He’s actually gotten quite good.”

Sigurd rolled his eyes,  “I’ll be the judge of that.” 

“So, you’re staying…” Eivor started, blue eyes hopeful. 

Sigurd was sure his face looked harder-set than he intended, knew that that jealous wriggling just below his sternum was showing. 

A short breath and a quick smile helped ease the tightness in his chest. With a breathy chuckle and a quick step forward, he slung his arm around Eivor’s shoulders, pulling him flush along the length of his side. 

“Oh, come now, you do not think I would miss out on watching you wrestle with the fish monger’s boy in the mud do you?” he chided slyly as he began guiding them toward the longhouse. 

“He’s really not  _ that _ bad, brother,” Eivor said defensively.

“Perhaps not. But watching him practically smother you was quite a site.”

“That was  _ years _ ago…”

Eivor dug an elbow into Sigurd’s armored ribs, teasingly.

Images of a tragically comical training session he’d witnessed came to Sigurd’s mind. As he recalled it, there was much undignified grappling in the snow with the slightly more rotund fish monger’s son. Eivor wasn’t skilled enough to overcome the clumsy approach the other boy took and struggled greatly to compensate for the boy’s uncoordinated heft. At least Eivor had learned a valuable lesson that day, and walked away with the knowledge that not every opponent he would face would be a skilled warrior and to always expect the unexpected.

“Come, we have much to catch up on, little brother. I will regale you with stories of how Dag’s drunken snores were mistaken for a bear in heat and scared the living piss out of Ake.”

Eivor laughed beside him and he felt suddenly at ease again, as though a part of him that had been missing these long months had been finally returned.


	2. Eivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eivor doesn't pick up on innuendo and is a generally awkward teenager.

#  **02**

##  _Eivor_

The large fire in the center of the longhouse staved off much of the chilly spring air that night. And while the festivities of the evening were merry, to be sure, Eivor couldn’t help but notice how his brother seemed distant and troubled when he thought no one was looking at him. 

Sigurd had told him how their raids had yielded less than expected. Kjotve’s clan had become more cunning in their pursuit of hiding their wealth from the Raven clan, setting up decoy camps guarded by second rate warriors, too stupid to realize their lives mattered very little to their leader. But as promised, Sigurd’s disappointment was balanced with raucous tales of life in the wild that captivated not only him, but every ear within range.

Eivor longed to join his brother on a raid. There were countless nights spent imagining the adventures they would get into. At 17 we knew he was just on the cusp of being old enough to go. The call of singing steel and fire rang in his ears, beckoning him to join the fray. He knew that patience was neither his or his brother’s virtue, but of the two of them he figured he had the more level head. So while the fire inside him smouldered, he knew that rushing his training and rushing into battle was not a wise move. His brother had always protected him, watched his back; even if it meant leaving his own flank exposed.

He would never forgive himself if ill fate befell Sigurd because of his lack of patience and preparation.

But nonetheless, he longed to feel the cold mist of sea water on his skin as their boat crested a wave and feel the salt laden air whip through his hair; longed to look over at his brother, wind whipped cheeks rosy in the cold, and share in the calm, anticipatory moments before blowing the battle horn.

Eivor was cramped between two large _drengr_ at a long bench near fire, roasted elk and potatoes stared up at him from his mostly untouched plate of food. He took in his surroundings, quietly watching the merriment. A few women danced near the fire, their skirt hems in hand, so as not to trip while they moved. Several men leered at them from the shadows nearby.

A game of orlog that seemed very heated suddenly erupted towards the back of the room.

“The die was in play!” a man’s voice bellowed.

“No it weren’t! It was caught on it’s side!”

“You didn’t let it settle! You can’t simply reroll whenever you like!”

Eivor chuckled at the two men, who were now standing, faces very close yelling at one another. It wouldn’t be a party if someone didn’t leave with a black eye and a broken rib.

“I thought the neck was your favorite part,” a familiar voice.

Eivor felt, more than watched, Sigurd slide onto the bench beside him. Armor gone, and dressed in one of his nicer tunics, Sigurd looked very much the picture of the handsome heir he was always destined to be. Eivor looked at him, then down at his plate where the pile of meat lay cold.

“Just not very hungry, I guess.”

He poked his knife blade at the meat.

A warm arm slid around his shoulders and Sigurd leaned in close.

“So are you going to tell me about that tattoo I spied earlier?”

Sigurd reached over with his other arm and jabbed him in the bicep roughly. Eivor could feel his face flush a bit. He didn’t think SIgurd had noticed. Eivor usually found himself disappointed when he thought he was being clever, as Sigurd rarely missed anything. While patience might not be one of Sigurd’s virtues, observation and cleverness certainly were.

“I didn’t think you’d seen…” Eivor said, his hand absentmindedly brushing over his own bicep, over the stylized raven with a bearded axe in its beak.

“Ahhhh but when have you ever been able to keep a secret from me, little raven?”

Sigurd leaned back, releasing his grasp on Eivor. He laughed a full-bellied laugh and motioned for his horn to be refilled with ale. A woman in a green dress approached and refilled the draft with a wink before turning to tend to another _vikingr_. She perhaps swayed her hips a little more than was necessary as she walked away, Eivor thought.

Eivor dropped his hands to his lap. While his body may have had an onlooker fooled as to the state of his burgeoning manhood, he sometimes still felt like the awkward, orphan boy he always was. He felt taught, like the rows of twine on a weaver’s loom, pulled just tight enough to not get in the way, but not enough to break.

He had always felt a nagging anxiety at feasts. Ever since the night his parents died, a feast like this one cruelly interrupted. Nights like this always left him on edge. The feeling that battle horns could sound in the distance at any moment left him fidgeting in his seat, unable to enjoy much else than pushing the food around his plate and nervously watching the doors.

By this time in the evening, when people were sufficiently sauced and supped, he’d usually slink away to the storage loft in the rafters. It was warm up there, the smokey heat from the fireplace lingering at the apex of the ceiling. He’d curl up on some pilfered blankets with a candle and read, or just lay there and think; anything to pull his attention from the echoes of steel cutting through flesh and bone and howls of wolves singing in the night.

Sometimes, Sigurd would join him if he didn’t find a willing girl to bed. But the older they got the less interested Sigurd seemed to be in hiding away from the bustle of a feast to spend time with him.

“You didn’t get into any of _that_ while I was away, did you?” Sigurd took a long swig of ale and raised an eyebrow.

“Into any of _what_?” Eivor asked innocently.

Sigurd laughed again, then nodded subtly to the woman in the green dress behind them. She was happily serving two men, bending forward dramatically, undoubtedly revealing her sumptuous cleavage. 

“ _That_.” 

Eivor fidgeted, not knowing what to do with his hands, heat rising at the back of his neck.

Not having a father to teach him about sex or a mother to teach him about love, which he gathered through observation were often mistaken for one another, had left him decidedly and painfully uneducated in the matters of the fairer sex. He hadn’t really thought about girls much. He mostly lamented the effect they seemed to have on his brother when he was three ales deep. 

“Oh… that…” Eivor paused, looking down at his hands in his lap. “Uhh, not really no.”

“No?” Sigurd raised his brows and shrugged in mild disbelief, taking another long drink.

“I just–”

“Nah, I understand little brother. A late bloomer. Just as I expected.” Sigurd raised his horn to him as if in a small, personal toast, “It’s alright. One day you’ll wake up and know _exactly_ what to do. There isn’t much to it if I’m being honest. I’m sure you have many more admirers than you know.”

Sigurd turned to the woman in green who was slyly watching him from the corner of her eye, he raised his horn to her and returned the earlier wink with a broad grin. She giggled and turned away with fake modesty, moving on to the next group of men with empty cups and hungry eyes. 

Eivor smiled at his brother’s carefree crassness. He had always admired the way Sigurd seemed to float through life, not in a privileged way, but in a way that only people who really understood the way the world worked could manage. It was effortless.

Sigurd was staring at him now, with something Eivor couldn’t quite place, a fondness perhaps, enhanced by the copious amounts of ale he had no doubt imbibed.

“I’m glad you’re back, brother,” Eivor said firmly, meeting his brother’s gaze.

Sigurd smiled, the corner of his lips twitching outwards as he let a short snort of air through his nose. He switched his drinking horn to his other hand and Eivor suddenly felt the weight of Sigurd’s large hand on his head.

“As am I,” Sigurd sighed. 

As the older man moved to get up he violently ruffled the blonde’s hair, pulling much of it loose from its leather tie. Eivor started, flailing his arms, trying to grab hold of his brother.

“HEY!” 

“Is for horses!” Sigurd laughed merrily.

The assault stopped and Sigurd turned to walk away. He raised his horn one more time and shouted over his shoulder, “We start at first light, brother!”

Eivor tried futilely to smooth his hair, watching his brother’s retreating form through the haze of smoke. 

“If you can pull yourself away from _that_ in the morning,” he muttered to himself, pulling the leather binding from his hair and gathering his back again to retie it.

The woman in green lingered behind him, her eyes just as hungry as the men to whom she served the ale.


	3. Sigurd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sigurd worries about the walking contradiction that Eivor has become.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have another! Been sitting on the first 10 chapters, working them over and trying to create some consistency.
> 
> More to come in the next few days! Gonna keep posting as I proof read them. Thanks for the kudos and comments!!! Appreciate it!

#  **03**

##  _ Sigurd _

For the first time, making his way across the great hall, weaving through his fellow clansmen and women, Sigurd felt alone. Not necessarily for lack of company, as he had already decided to pursue the young woman in the green dress before the night was through, but alone in the sense that he suddenly found himself afflicted with a strange, hard to articulate feeling that left him on edge. 

Sigurd was a proud, bold, and ambitious young man, with nary a worry aside from with whom he might share a bed with that evening and keeping the village’s larders laden. But something had changed when he set foot on dry land again. Home, back to his clan, his father and, most importantly, Eivor. It was strange, returning to see someone he was so close to suddenly  _ feel _ so different. 

Eivor was his near constant companion. But for the first time in his young, but battle-weary life, he felt like he was missing a piece of Eivor, like not being there to build those muscles with him and teach him about women-gods, did that boy need help there- had somehow caused a space between them that he desperately felt he needed to fill. 

The auburn haired viking stopped momentarily to drain the remaining ale in his horn, and rather than calling for a refill, he simply dropped the vessel on the straw strewn floor and grabbed a near full tankard from the hands of one of his warriors who looked both flustered and ready to throw a punch at any moment. 

With the insouciance that Eivor admired, Sigurd clapped the gruff-looking man on the back and continued his retreat to the head table where his father sat. 

Slumping down in the empty wooden chair that was his birthright, he watched the festivities unfold before him in silence.

His father was not a man of many words, instead, often choosing diplomacy where a well-placed axe would otherwise suffice. While there was something to be admired in regards to his father’s pursuit of peace, Sigurd often grappled with the blood lust of his youth and the roiling fire within him to prove himself worthy of his namesake and his place in Valhalla amongst the great warriors that came before him. 

Knowing one day he would lead the Raven clan, that all these people would be under his care, his protection, is what called him back to the sea. Even just knowing that a man such as Kjotve could still be raining terror down upon them after so many years made his blood boil like a summer pond fat with roiling eels. He sometimes resented his father’s seeming lack of desire to put the rival clan in their place. If it were up to him, Kjotve would be nothing more than a rotting skull on a pike.

It made him sick that Eivor would inherit that burden, the weight of revenge for the lives lost, his parents, on that night so long ago. The world was a cruel place to burden a child so young with a grief and horror so grisley. Few others would have come out of a childhood like that with as much grace as Eivor had. And yet the young man before him seemed a walking contradiction. Handsome, strong and skilled, but also timid, contemplative and awkward in his own endearing way.

And while try as Sigurd might to prepare Eivor for what he knew would be an inevitably violent, albeit exciting, future, tinged with an understandable lust for revenge, Sigurd couldn’t help feeling in this moment like he’d somehow failed him. While Eivor’s body reflected that of a young warrior, starting to hone his body to match the blade edge of his bearded axe, it was clear to Sigurd that his little brother still bore the trauma of his youth. 

By the time he was 16 years old he’d already bedded half girls in Fornburg and was only deterred by the promise of a beating or worse for being caught with the wrong man’s woman. And yet here his little brother was, for all the ways in which he soaked up all that Sigurd was, a gentle boy, a poet trapped in a warrior’s body, who’d rather slip away to read than get ale drunk and fuck. 

While Sigurd actually quite admired the quiet way in which his brother took in the world, he also often saw that contemplative nature come into conflict with the very same fire, which he himself felt, that lingered just under the surface. There had been times where he’d seen Eivor very overcome with some such conflict, which usually left the younger viking visibly frustrated, distant and taciturn, as though a steaming geisser was building up pressure, threatening to explode. Sigurd could usually sense these times, but he worried that the more time he spent away, the more that pressure would build within Eivor. If he wasn’t around to help him through it, he worried what kind of trouble Eivor might get himself into.

Usually, Sigurd would take Eivor hunting when he got that way, when the distant look in his eyes would return, as if he was reaching back in time and also to some far away future at the same time, searching for something he didn’t even know was missing. Eivor had always enjoyed going out into the Norwegian wild lands, just the two of them. Sometimes they’d even hunker down for the night under a dense copse of trees or make a crude camp under the overhang of a rock outcropping. Something about the fresh air, free from the stale stench of horse shit and rotting hay, seemed to snap Eivor out of his moods. He would come alive when they were together like that, his eyes reflecting the expanse of endless sky above them, his laughter coming freely and his movements light and sure. Sigurd loved seeing him like that, unburdened by the weight of his past, or the uncertainty of his future. 

“Sigurd, my son. Where are you now?”

His father’s voice. Sigurd realized he must have looked foolish, staring off into the distance like a drunken fool. He turned to look at his father. Styrbjorn was still looking ahead, observing the festivities.

“Nowhere, just thinking,” he replied, taking another draught of the ale that did not technically belong to him.

“You had that look in your eyes,” his father continued.

“How do you mean?”

“The look your mother sometimes got when she wished herself elsewhere. You should be celebrating your accomplishments with the others and not daydreaming.”

Sigurd looked into his cup, the amber liquid beautiful as it swirled in his hand.

“Of course not, father.”

A vision of a crystal clear glacial stream high in the mountains and Eivor’s smiling face, pink from cold appeared his mind.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”


	4. Eivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eivor runs laps and can't decide if having his brother back is a blessing or a new form of torture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Algson is totally fictitious and in my mind based off of how adorable Sam is in the early days of Game of Thrones, however I imagine Algson a bit less bumbling, but no less kind.

#  **04**

##  _ Eivor _

As sure as winter came each year, so was Eivor’s rude awakening at the hands of his inexplicably energetic older brother. Peering through sleep crusted eyes he could see Sigurd looming over him.

“Up with yeh!” his brother bellowed, peeling back the furs that kept Eivor enveloped in a warm pocket of air. 

Cold air washed over him and he rolled over into a ball. He knew he was too old to be acting like this, but he found that Sigurd had a playful soft spot for when Eivor acted like a spoiled child. He honestly didn’t know why he put up with it, but still, he whined against the cold and made a show of shivering pathetically.

“Five more min–”

“I said first light and I meant it!”

The blonde peered over his shoulder, half turning towards his brother, feigning hurt, “How do you have  _ this _ much energy after a night of drinking like that with Dag?”

Sigurd tapped a finger to the side of his head and said mockingly, “Years of practice! Seems like I have much to teach you.”

Sigurd slapped Eivor playfully on his rump before turning and walking toward the door briskly.

“You have 5 minutes or you’re running laps with that fisherman’s boy.”

Eivor groaned, flopping on to his back. The ceiling loomed above him and he could hear Sigurd’s footsteps retreating through the main hall of the longhouse. In his early morning fog he couldn’t quite tell if he was grateful to have his brother back so he could start some real training, or if he had praised the gods for a what might turn out to be a new form of torture.

Rallying his strength with a deep breath, he hoisted himself out of bed and dressed quickly; a tunic, padded cotton pants and a leather training doublet. He carelessly swept his hair back at the nape of his neck, its length at that awkward phase where it couldn’t decide it wanted to stay in a pony tail or not. Usually, not. Grabbing his blades and a pair of leather gloves on the way out, he jogged through the great hall, snatching a stale heel of bread left over from the previous night's festivities on his way toward the training grounds where his brother would make him run laps regardless of his five minute grace period.

It was a misty, chill spring morning, but the promise of a mild day lay quietly in wait as the sun had barely just started its slow ascent over the mountains. Eivor shivered, tensing his shoulders up to his ears as he rounded the corner of the Gunnar’s forge, the training area in sight. He finished the last bit of bread just as he stepped into training ring.

“I said five minutes,” Sigurd called from under the awning of the blacksmith’s shop. He was sitting on a tree stump, whet stone in hand honing the blade of his bearded axe, “The fisherman’s boy already has a lap on you…”

Just then Algson came puffing by, breath clouding in front of him with his exertion. 

“Morning Eivor!”

The boy jogged past the two brothers and disappeared around the corner without so much as pause or complaint.

“I’d start running if I were you, lest I have to tell Dag and the others you were outpaced by…  _ that _ …”

Sigurd looked up with a raised eyebrow and a taunting smirk. Eivor rolled his eyes.

“Why are you _ like _ this?” Eivor groaned. He rolled his shoulders back and swung his arms back and forward, loosening up his shoulders. With a final resigned huff he took off, leather boots squelching slightly with each step.

As he rounded the forge he spied Algson up ahead. He knew he could speed up enough to make up the lap he was behind, but his body ached in the chill air and he hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep. 

After Sigurd had left him at the party the night before, he’d sat at his table, ignored by nearly everyone, just long enough to pick at a few more bites of his elk and potatoes, witness a fist fight that ended with both men bloody fisted and howling with laughter, and three different people pass out in a particularly heated drinking contest. 

If he was being honest, none of this particularly appealed to him. Sure, this was his home, his family, and the people around him had banded together to raise him. Nothing mattered more than family and clan. And while he knew many of them cared for him, he often couldn’t shake the feeling that he was different, an outsider. Some still saw his parents’ deaths as dishonorable, and several, on occasions when Sigurd was not around, made it very clear to him that they did not necessarily care for or empathize with him.

He often thought about that night. The fear, the taste of blood in his mouth, holding onto Sigurd as they rode through the night, the horse rearing and then falling, falling, falling. The rest came in scrambled flashes, leaving him unsure of the sequence of events. He remembered the awful howls of wolves and the cold ice beneath his fingers, how his fingernails clawed at the slick, cold surface as yellow eyes hungrily bore down on him. 

There was pain, but then there was Sigurd. He couldn’t remember what happened to actually scare off the wolves, but Sigurd was there, covered in his blood, fear in his eyes. 

That was that part Eivor remembered the most clearly. The horror in Sigurd’s eyes as his hands scrambled to stop the bleeding at his neck. The thought of ever having to see that look in those stormy grey eyes again was enough to make his knees falter as he ran. If anything, preventing such a moment from happening again was the match in a grain silo that had provoked him training the way he had over the last nine months; taking all the practice he’d had over the years and really starting to apply it in earnest. 

Sigurd had been surprised by his development. But the truth was that Eivor had spent nearly every waking hour while his brother was away pushing himself, practicing, getting stronger, so that he could earn his place by Sigurd’s side.

While the desire to exact revenge for his parents’ death lingered like a dark and harrowing shadow lurking at the edges of his mind, being strong enough to claim the position of second to his brother was far more important than Kjotve and his clan. 

Eivor would have nothing, be nothing, would be dead, without Sigurd. He owed him everything. He would give him anything.

He took a deep breath and picked up his pace, a new resolve seeping into his bones as his body warmed with the physical exertion. 

“Morning, Algson,” he said curtly, easily closing the space and passing the boy on his right. 

The boy smiled at him, keeping a steady but modest pace. Algson had never been particularly competitive, and while not quick, somehow had a relentless stamina that bordered on supernatural. 

His breathing evened out, finding its rhythm.  _ Step, step, breathe in, step, step, breathe out.  _ His movements became automatic, easier as his pace quickened, blood pounding through his veins.

He turned left by the shipyard and followed the road that ran parallel to the docks. The fishermen were out already, nets cast, lines submerged. Sea birds circled overhead waiting for the first haul and the butchery to begin, the promise of scraps and the fish organs that would be discarded enticing hungry, impatient cries from them. 

The sun was full and bright in the sky, driving off the mist by the time he passed the training ground. Sigurd was on his tree stump, feet up along the wooden fence, arms behind his head as he leaned against the wall of the forge. Eivor knew that wall was warm, as the fires that Gunnar used were on the other side, no doubt being brought back to roaring life, now that the little hamlet had started to rise. 

Eivor waved as he passed and Sigurd nodded, a small smile playing on his lips. 

“Only four more to go,” Sigurd called after him as he rounded the corner of the forge once more. 

The image of Sigurd’s long body reclining against the forge, long lashes shading the piercing eyes fixed on him as he ran past, lingered in his mind for longer than he thought it would.


	5. Sigurd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sigurd is impressed with Eivor's archery skills.

#  **05**

##  _ Sigurd _

As hard as it was to admit, Sigurd was actually impressed with Eivor’s combat skills. He’d never let the younger man know it, but the years of practice, however unstructured it was, had actually served him well. He was scrappy and resourceful, quick and shockingly precise with a bow. Eivor had most certainly not gotten his ranged fighting abilities from him, as his preferred method was a bit more  _ personal _ , as he liked to call it. 

Sigurd watched from his tree stump as Eivor drew another arrow. His chest rose with a slow and steady breath in, arm pulling back taught on the string. The way Eivor’s jaw flexed, the muscles under his pale skin tensing with concentration, the moment of stillness before his slender fingers let the arrow loose and the slow exhale as he watched the arrow find its mark, all held Sigurd’s gaze captive. 

He caught himself holding his own breath in tandem to the young man, a mirror of his opposite. 

Sigurd had never had that level of control before. He was all fire and instinct. This was something different; calculated and precise. 

Eivor quickly drew another arrow and nocked it, setting up another shot, but Sigurd interrupted him. 

“You will never be still like this in battle, brother. You need to practice moving.”

Eivor turned to him, lowering his bow. 

“You don’t say,” Eivor smirked at him in a playful, knowing way. “What do you think I’ve been doing while you’ve been away? Playing with dolls?”

Sigurd gestured to the target.  _ Go ahead, impress me _ his raised eyebrow seemed to say. 

Eivor moved to the edge of archery range, grabbing some extra arrows from a standing quiver along the way. There were four straw targets set up, easily 40 paces away. 

The blonde took a deep breath, nocked an arrow and with a steady, moderate pace made his way across the archery range. His movements were even and smooth, the first arrow loosed as he came upon the first target and it seemed the second arrow was ready to fly before the first even hit the target.  _ Thunk _ . 

The second arrow hit home just beside the first,  _ thunk _ . 

He kept moving, parallel to the targets. As he approached the second he crouched low, as if simulating dodging some invisible projectile, and loosed the third arrow,  _ thunk _ . The fourth followed as he rose back to standing, continuing his path. Arrows five and six,  _ thunk, thunk,  _ both hit dead center and as if Eivor was trying to show off, he picked up the pace of his steps, whirled around once,  _ thunk,  _ took a large leap forward into a crouch and loosed his last arrow.

A final  _ thunk _ rang in Sigurd’s ears. 

_ Well, fuck. _

If he wasn’t impressed before he most certainly was now. Eivor stood, bow at his side and turned toward him, a strand of blonde hair coming loose from its leather binding and falling into face. 

Blue eyes pierced into him as though loosed by the very same bow that Eivor had just used to dazzle him. 

“Well?” Eivor smirked. He knew he’d done well. “Still think I’ve been twiddling my thumbs while you were away?”

Sigurd stood and closed the space between them. For a moment he thought of stopping to brush that strand of hair behind Eivor’s pink ear, but he brushed past him towards the straw targets. 

He made a show of silently inspecting each arrow lodged deep in the bound straw. 

As he reached the fourth, fingers tracing the raven fletching at the end of one of the arrows, he turned back to his brother, a slow, sneaky grin pulling across his face. 

“You’ve been holding out,” he said conspiratorial, eyes darkening. 

Eivor cracked a small smile that pulled further on Sigurd’s own. 

“You never told me you were that good with a bow, little raven.”

Relief spread across Eivor’s face, and the obvious effect his praise had on him tugged at something dark and unexamined inside him. Sigurd knew to use his pet name, the name he’d chosen specifically for Eivor. No one else called him that, no one dared. Few others even knew Sigurd had such a precious name for Eivor. 

Sigurd moved toward Eivor and clapped a hand onto his shoulder. Eivor was still smaller than him, but the way he was holding himself now made the difference seem insignificant. It was likely that his slighter stature made him all the more agile. 

“I could have used that skill of yours on more occasions than I can count.”

Eivor smiled, his eyes shining in the mid morning sun. Sigurd knew how Eivor longed to join him in battle, to whet that growing appetite for adventure. They had talked about it countless times. With tales of every new victory that Sigurd shared with Eivor, he could see that fire inside him grow. There was so much more at stake then the survival of the clan. Especially for Eivor. Each winter, each day that passed brought Eivor closer to the day that he would seek out Kjotve to finish the saga he’d started on that winter night so long ago. The encounter was fated, inevitable, woven into the tapestry of destiny that Sigurd believed wholeheartedly held the key to his and Eivor’s greatness. The outcome of this meeting, however, remained less certain. The fates knew what would come to pass, and while preparing Eivor for that moment through training certainly felt as though it would add to a more favorable outcome, Sigurd was not so foolish to think he could rework the very threads of fate that bound them all together. But he could try. Whether through folly or selfishness, he had tried to keep him away for as long as possible from the bloodshed. Sigurd protected him from as much of the unnecessary cruelty of the world as much as a big brother could, even though it seemed futile in the innately violent reality in which they all lived. 

“Do you mean that, brother?” 

“Yes.” 

But reluctantly so. Admitting to it meant that Sigurd had to resign himself to the fact that Eivor was almost ready, that he had been growing, getting stronger without him. But, the upside of his quick growth meant that it would be soon that they would not be just brothers in name, but also brothers in arms.

He sighed, smiling down warmly at Eivor. 

“Now let’s see how good you are with that axe, eh?” 

Eivor beamed, a mischievous glint in his eye, and Sigurd’s heart suddenly ached with something hard to name, something bittersweet and all together strange. 


	6. Eivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eivor's imagination takes him to places he didn't plan on going.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A glimmer of what's to come. Hope you enjoy. Thank you all so much for reading and the kind words!! I'm already well into chapter 15 of this monster. Have a pretty good plan and am planning to cover the time period up until Sigurd leaves for Constantinople. Depending on how I feel (which right now is pretty good, still need to finish the game!!!), might do a part 2 that covers post game using the same versions of these baby bois. Updating some tags to accommodate content in upcoming chapters.
> 
> Additional Notes at end.

#  **06**

##  _Eivor_

Eivor collapsed on his bed that night so completely and utterly spent he felt as though death might take him there and then. His legs ached, and his shoulders were tight from running combat drills with Sigurd. 

They had spent the better half of the afternoon working on his axe throwing. His brother had had keen sight enough to notice his habit of slightly internally rotating his wrist just as he released the axe. This caused a small, but cascading effect that often led to the axe becoming unbalanced in flight, thus increasing the possibility of an incomplete rotation just before hitting the target. 

Eivor hadn’t even noticed the mistake but saw a marked improvement with just a few small adjustments and more attention put into correcting the error. 

He reveled in Sigurd’s praise after ten perfect throws in a row, the way his brother had clapped him on the shoulder and smiled… Eivor had always chased that feeling. Having no father to praise his efforts any longer, that job now belonged solely to Sigurd. 

Sigurd was strict in his own way, and didn’t dole out kind words too easily to Eivor. But when he did, he meant it. Eivor could feel it in his bones, knew that he had truly made the older man proud. His brother was one of the only litmus tests he had against the world. He was the only way he knew if he was following the right path or doing things the right way. They often disagreed, Sigurd sometimes lamenting Eivor’s penchant for quietness, and how he’d rather read than drink with him; but Eivor also knew that Sigurd treasured those qualities in him above all because they made him different from the others. 

Eivor rolled over to his side, drifting somewhere between exhaustion and exhilaration. He hadn’t bothered to take his clothes off, he knew he smelled of sweat and mud. 

Training with Sigurd like that today had been the most welcome and exciting thing that had happened to him since his brother’s departure so many months ago. Seeing him move, command his space, knowing that he was passing on all of his knowledge to him and that they would be able to spend time together over the coming summer… he smiled, turning his face into his feather pillow. 

“You coming to dinner?”

Startled, and poised like a frightened cat, Eivor hefted himself up onto his arms, turning towards the open door to his room. 

A familiar face, high cheekbones and slender pointed nose framed by auburn hair, beamed down at him. Sigurd leaned against the doorway, the very picture of ease. 

“If I can get up,” he sighed and dramatically plopped back down onto the straw-stuffed bed. 

“Oh, come now. Surely I didn’t work you that hard. You can take it.”

He heard Sigurd push off the carved door frame and take a few steps toward the bed. 

Sigurd’s weight pressed down on the mattress beside him. Without warning Sigurd bent down, bowing his head suddenly, pressing his face into the crook of Eivor’s neck. 

Eivor could feel his brother’s hot breath pricking against the skin above the collar of his tunic. His heart flickered once. His breath caught in his throat. 

Sigurd took a deep breath in, and a wriggling feeling crept into the pit of Eivor’s stomach. But just as quickly as Sigurd had invaded his space, he was gone, stormy eyes locking onto his as he pulled away, sitting up once more. 

“You stink,” he said flatly. 

“And whose fault is that?” Eivor replied. 

“Wash up. I had Gretka draw you a bath. Father won’t be pleased if you show up for dinner smelling… well, eghhh.”

Sigurd made a face, grimacing dramatically. Eivor snorted, catching on to Sigurd’s teasing and playfully smacked Sigurd’s arm. 

“It can’t be that bad!” he pulled the front of his tunic forward and dipped his nose down to take a whiff of himself.

“Trust me, you are blessed to not be able to smell yourself.”

Sigurd stood, his warmth suddenly gone. Eivor groaned and rolled onto his stomach, pushing himself up to all fours before sliding his legs under him to sit on the edge of the bed. 

“Off with, yeh,” Sigurd boomed, and smacked him playfully on the leg.

Eivor laughed, flinching away as a young maiden might shy away from a mouse. Sigurd chuckled and made his way to the door, and Eivor followed him, grabbing a cloth towel on his way out. 

“See you at dinner, brother,” Sigurd called over his shoulder.

A sarcastic _mmhmm_ was all he could muster as he dragged his feet in the opposite direction, toward the warm bath that awaited him.

He found the nook where his bath had been drawn. A warm fire crackled in the corner, the smoke and steam filling the air with a heady haze. His head swam as he inhaled deeply, the low ache in his body adding a leaden weight to his limbs.

He stripped quickly, tossing his clothes on the floor. A long sigh escaped him as he slowly lowered himself into the tub. Fully submerged, he leaned his back against the coarse sides of the basin. A warm bath like this was a rare and welcome gift.

He didn’t realize just how tense he’d been. He knew his training had just started, but something about having his brother back both soothed him and caused a knot of anxiety in his stomach. For as long as he could remember Sigurd had been there for him, a steady rock, unfettered and unfazed by the world around him. Eivor knew how much it pained them both for Sigurd to be drawn away. But duty ruled all, and his role as son of the Jarl meant Sigurd’s responsibilities were inescapable. He still remembered the fuss he’d thrown when Sigurd left for the first time. He’d been 12, Sigurd not much older than he was now. Eivor had snuck away to see him off and in a spectacularly embarrassing manner, flung himself around his brother’s waist just as he was boarding the longship. The other men had laughed as Eivor’s tears fell, the imminent separation overwhelming him. Sigurd took it in stride and knelt down to look him in the eyes, brush his tears away and reassure him he’d be home soon. _I will come back to you, I promise._

He closed his eyes as the tendrils of steam curled around him. He could still feel the way Sigurd had hugged him then, how he’d poured all his strength and reassurance into the embrace as if trying to leave a piece of himself in it, with Eivor.

Now fully relaxed, his mind began to wander. The ache in his legs had subsided and he swished his hand idly across the surface of the water.

He would be old enough soon to join Sigurd in battle; and he desired nothing more than that. It was though every waking moment of his life had been spent preparing for that day, for when their age gap would not keep them separated, for when he would be viewed as a man, a _drengr_ , worthy of standing by his brother’s side.

Leaning his head back over the edge of the tub he looked toward the ceiling, the heavy beam rafters looming overhead, shadows from the fire dancing across the dark wood. He thought of the woman in the green dress from the night before, and wondered if Sigurd had bedded her. He knew the odds were high. Based on the way she had eyed him and he’d winked back at her, it seemed an impossibility that he hadn’t slipped up behind her as the festivities began to dwindle. He imagined him slipping an arm around her slim waist. How he might have whispered a hushed, baudy invitation in her ear. She seemed the type to pay hard to get at first, and pictured her giggling with false modesty, playfully refusing his advances.

That always seemed to work for Sigurd. Eivor knew that Sigurd thought him inexperienced. And while practically, yes, he had really only dipped his toe into  _ that _ pool, his theoretical knowledge of intimacy was quite advanced. He was an observer, he watched what happened at those feasts, watched the men make their lecherous advances and the women play their coy games. He’d heard stories from the other boys his age, VIli among them, who would openly and loudly share their crass anecdotes about their various conquests.

Sigurd had tried to give Eivor “lady” advice on a few occasions, and encouraged him to  _ get to know  _ some of the young women in the village. It wasn’t  _ getting _ girls to talk to him that was the issue, it was what came after. He never felt like he had much to say, or that they had much to say to him, for that matter. Few seemed to prize him for his quizzical and poetic nature like Sigurd did, which made conversation with the vast majority of people often dull. He’d tried the alternative approach, trying not to think too much about a deeper relationship and just going for something more tactile and fleeting. But even that didn’t amount to much more than some clumsy groping and awkward kissing up in the rafters above the great hall.

He knew he was attractive, knew how people looked at him. Some of the older women in town would comment on how he was becoming a man, or how much he’d grown (sometimes a sly look would accompany their remarks). And it certainly wasn’t that he didn’t have, well, needs… he just hadn’t had so much luck in fulfilling those needs with others. None of it ever really seemed to fit, or particularly feel good.

_ You’ll get the hang of it, _ Vili had told him. And it was likely true enough advice, but he couldn’t help feel like something was wrong with him that he couldn’t seem to just do it like everyone else.

He sighed, dropping his hands below the water. 

A fleeting recollection of the way Sigurd had crowded his space and pressed his face against his neck sent a spark of awareness though him, a small tug of something arousing pulling behind his navel. It was weird. _Don’t_. 

He quickly constructed the image of the woman in the green dress, something more appropriate, something less dangerous.

He slid his hand over his thigh, rubbing his palm against the tender stretch of muscle there. His mind drew in details he wasn’t sure were entirely accurate. Her eyes were stormy and grey, which somehow didn’t feel natural with the rest of her face. He tried to hold on to the way her dress was laced so loosely at her bosom, how soft the skin below the peak of her collarbones looked.

The tug in his belly grew into a tightness, the muscles in his groin tensed automatically. He allowed his hand to travel lower, sliding it back up his thigh so it came to rest against his hip bone. He conjured the image of how her hips swayed just a little too much to be natural as she walked away. 

Finger tips grazed over the flesh of his half hard cock. The heat in his gut roiled and seeped lower. Again, he thought of Sigurd pressing up behind her, how she would have feigned surprise. Perhaps she’d leaned into his touch, pressed her hips back into his, for just a moment before pulling away with a wicked, coy look in her eye. 

He twitched in his hand. The warmth from the water and the hand that enveloped him only further served to stoke his arousal. He began stroking himself, slowly but firmly. Eivor’s imagination worked furiously to imagine himself in his brother’s place, to construct images of the woman in green, to pretend she was the cause of his excitement. But as he touched himself, the visions strayed. Instead of being in Sigurd’s place, he imagined himself watching the two of them, their bodies flush against one another. He could see the way Sigurd’s hands worked to undo her blouse, freeing her soft, white body from that green fabric. Her hands slid over Sigurd’s skin, his neck and shoulders as he buried his face in her neck, pressing himself against her.

The pace of his strokes quickened as the woman in his mind dropped to her knees before Sigurd. She leaned forward and took Sigurd’s hard member into her mouth. Eivor tried to shift the perspective of his fantasy, tried to focus on being in Sigurd’s place, with the woman’s mouth around him; but he couldn’t keep himself there.

His breaths came faster. She looked up at him, no, at Sigurd, peering through her long lashes. Sigurd’s choked moan sounded as clear as though his face was still buried in his neck, as his own arousal rose, quickly crashing toward release. Eivor threw his head back, holding fast to the fantasy in his mind, to her bobbing head, the way Sigurd’s thighs trembled. He could see Sigurd’s hands slide into her hair, and for a split moment, those same hands were combing through his own hair, fingernails grazing over his scalp.

Toes curling, muscles flexing, his release hit him suddenly and violently, a vivid image of stormy grey eyes, pupils blown and heavy with arousal looking down at him burning itself into the darkness of his closed lids as he came into the cooling bath water.

His breath was heavy. Chest heaving, he looked down at his lap. His cock, still hard, lay in his hand.

 _Shit_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've revised this chapter slightly. I wasn't totally happy with the insinuation that Eivor hadn't been at least somewhat sexually active. I realized the further I got into the story, that the issue was less about him not being wanted by others, and more about him not wanting them back. It ended up feeling somewhat disingenuous and unrealistic for him to be completely inexperienced.


	7. Sigurd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sigurd reflects on his sex life.

#  **07**

##  _Sigurd_

He shouldn’t have done that. He knew it the second he’d leaned in. And now the lingering scent of Eivor’s sweat, sweet and earthy, mixing with the cold and smell of smoke from his hiding place in the rafters, filled his nose. 

He knew that smell, had smelled it many times while huddled under furs on hunting trips, or when Eivor had climbed into his bed at night when he was younger, afraid and cold, haunted by dreams of fangs and ice. But this time it was different. This time that familiar scent made his stomach flip and his jaw clench. 

He shook his head, trying to clear the remnants of the blonde out of his olfactory memory.

He needed a distraction. He had spent the night before with the woman in the green dress. She’d been an eager bed fellow, soft and welcoming. It hadn’t taken much to lead her to his room, for her to start unlacing her own dress. It was a dance he knew well. He was comfortable with the peacocking and the soft words. The whole experience was soft, her breasts, her skin beneath his fingers, her breathy sighs as he entered her. 

Pleasure was pleasure, he often told himself. His trieste with the woman in the green dress was like all the others–fleeting, safe and transactional. It was physical maintenance. Returning from battle, from being away from home, always left him agitated and empty, the flames of burning thatch roofs eating away at his insides, the battle horn ringing in his ears. Trying to douse those flames and dull the ringing with fleeting and insignificant intimacies seemed as good a solution as any, and tampered his uneasiness to some degree. 

But this time it was different. Even as he was laying with her, going through the motions, both seeking their pleasure, the fire in the pit of his stomach ate away at him. The gnawing feeling of emptiness in his heart remained raw and void. She had whispered his name over and over, the sweetness of her voice turning sour in his ears as he realized he did not know her name, nor particularly cared to know it. A deep bitterness settled over him, and the flames of restlessness did not waver.

It had been over quickly. She had left before the sun rose and he awoke alone in his bed, furs tangled around his naked hips. He was grateful for her early departure and cared little about her inevitably tittering away with her friends about how she’d snagged a night with the future Jarl. The gossip didn’t matter, she didn’t matter. None of it did.

A part of him knew that he was destined for so much more than what he would one day inherit from his father. It was that ambition that made him aggressive on the battlefield and merciless in his raids. He knew that the stronger he made the Raven clan now, the larger their reach and holdings, the more he would have to work with in the future. There was little that could not be settled with a well placed axe blade, which often brought him into direct conflict with his father. If it were up to his father they’d remain as they were and had been, run ragged into the cold ground by Kjotve and maybe worse. Peace was not an option and never had been, and to dismiss the need to put Kjotve in the ground as soon as possible for everyone’s sake seemed like a colossal mistake. 

Sigurd found himself in the great hall some time later and muttered a  _ thank fuck _ under his breath when he found it mostly empty. Dag and a few other  _ drengr _ were huddled around the ale barrel, already several drinks deep by the measure of their deep laughing and the pink tinge to their necks and cheeks. Drinking with his boys seemed like as welcome a distraction as any.

With a hearty clap on Dag’s back to signal his presence, he stepped into the tight ring of off duty warriors and dipped an empty horn into the amber liquid. 

From the moment the liquid touched his lips he was gone, lost in the company of his men and the buzz from the ale. Dinner was brought out and the group of drunk vikings moved to the long tables where they pulled heaping piles of roasted root vegetables and venison onto their wooden plates. The warmth in his cheeks was deep by the time he was aware of Eivor quietly setting down beside him, blonde hair darkened from his bath. Little strands of hair had curled into patterns, plastered to the skin at the back of his neck where he had missed some of the shorter bits while tying it back. 

“Happy now?” Eivor said, throwing a raised brow and a defiant side long look at him as he helped himself to what was left of the food. Sigurd hummed, his eyes softened by alcohol. 

He leaned in once more, angling his head so he could tuck his nose up just behind Eivor’s ear, where the loose strands of hair swirled across his skin. He inhaled deeply, hungrily. The earthy smell of cold and cinders that he’d come to know as simply  _ Eivor _ , remained. It was a small comfort that that was one thing that hadn’t changed.

Eivor tensed beside him. For a moment Sigurd could have sworn that Eivor leaned into it, but by the time he registered the movement Eivor had already jerked away, his hand rubbing over his neck where Sigurd’s face had just been. He leaned back and took another swig of his ale.

“Do you  _ mind _ ?” Eivor groaned, trying to sound offended but doing a poor job of hiding his embarrassment.

Out of the corner of his eye, Sigurd caught a faint tinge of pink creep across the back of Eivor’s neck. He loved when Eivor blushed. He loved how–the only lingering sober part of his brain stopped him from finishing that thought.

“Nope,” Sigurd said playfully, taking another sip of all. “Just checking. Now eat. We have much to do while I’m here and you’re still a growing boy who needs all the strength he can get.” 

He pinched Eivor’s cheek like a doting grandmother. Eivor scowled at him, but it was toothless. He couldn’t help teasing him, it was far too easy. Sigurd watched as Eivor took a bite of venison, the muscles in his jaw working. Short hair had started to grow along his jawline, not much, but it served as another reminder that he wasn’t a child anymore. Sigurd’s eyes lingered on the flex of his jaw as he chewed. He caught himself and looked into the bottom of his nearly empty cup. 

Dag’s voice rang out, calling for Sigurd’s attention, boisterous and commanding over the din. His beer addled brain, not able to focus on more than one thing at a time, turned its attention to the loud, dark haired man across the table and away from the shameful feeling that had started to bloom inside him; like the first spring crocus poking up just above the last skiff of melting snow.


	8. Eivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which summer has passed and Eivor realizes he might just want Sigurd's attention a little too much.

#  **08**

##  _ Eivor _

The chill remnants of winter gave way to a beautiful spring. The rains came and eventually gave way to a beautiful and mild summer. Eivor spent his days training with Sigurd. A daily routine of picking cold leftovers off the previous evening’s dinner table and running to the training field to run laps, practice his marksmanship and with various knives, axes and fisticuffs, continued. 

Each day he’d awaken with leaden limbs, redress whatever small wounds he’d received the day before, get dressed and make his way to the training grounds. Algson remained steady and committed as ever, and even Vili Hemmingson had joined the training in earnest. Like Eivor, Vili had been training most of his life (mostly under his father), but it took Sigurd’s steady and more regimented approach to get them both on track and focused, and actually applying all their skills in a practical way. 

Vili had been friends with Eivor for most of his life, and sometimes seemed to be the only person he actually enjoyed spending time with aside from his brother. While almost everyone was friendly to him, and respected his place as the adopted son of the Jarl, he still felt like an outsider. A true sense of belonging only seemed to settle upon him when he was with Sigurd. Something about the way he looked at him, would touch him in tender ways that he knew were reserved only for him, added to that feeling. Sigurd wasn’t a gentle person, exactly, but for all of his gruffness, Eivor knew he held a very special place in Sigurd’s heart.

But despite all that, the time that Vili and Eivor spent together as friends was always welcome, and added much needed levity to his day to day life. Vili had a lighthearted way about him, was rash and virile and always looking to pull pranks on unsuspecting victims. Trouble followed Vili, and on more than one occasion, Eivor had found himself wrapped up in it. Eivor imagined that Sigurd might have been more like Vili when he was younger if the pressures of his rank and place in the clan weren’t such a burden. 

Despite Vili’s more lackadaisical approach to life, he was a formidable young man on the battlefield and could readily put Eivor through his paces in training. They knew each other well, and knew how to take advantage of the other’s weaknesses. A healthy rivalry was a good thing, Sigurd had told him, but regardless of how hard they worked each other over in training, Vili and Eivor would always be friends again by dinnertime. 

The high summer sun beat down on all of the young men out in the training field. Almost all of them had peeled their shirts off hours ago, sweat and dirt clinging to their sun browned skin.

Eivor had already run his morning laps and was now working through a series of exercises that Sigurd had left him and the others to do. He finished a pushup, the ache in his chest rising as he completed that last bit of the movement. His arms were on fire. Sigurd watched them struggle in the heat from his usual stump in the shade by Gunnar’s shop. 

Eivor caught his brother’s eye and Sigurd smirked at him playfully. 

It had been several weeks since Sigurd had offered himself up as Eivor’s sparring partner. At the beginning of the summer, they’d trained together in hand-to-hand almost three times a week, but as the summer months dragged on, Sigurd had started to step back, instead putting Vili in his place. Eivor had been slightly upset by it at first, silently wondering if he’d done something wrong to make Sigurd recuse himself as Eivor’s sparring partner, but was able to convince himself that it was because Sigurd wanted to observe, and provide Eivor more varied combat experiences. Sigurd had several years of experience to be able to eagle-eye his form. He’d often stop Eivor mid swing or headlock to correct it, show him how to change his stance “just so” to get more leverage and better balance. But while Sigurd was an arbiter of form, Eivor was clever and scrappy, and to Sigurd’s surprise even bested him on several occasions.

Eivor completed his set of push-ups, and rising slowly to his feet, made his way over to Sigurd.

“Finished already?” Sigurd said, looking up at him from behind dark lashes. 

Eivor had always wondered what god had bestowed Sigurd that gift. The way they framed his eyes made his gaze very intense, and all the more able to command Eivor to carry out his whims. 

“Why, do you have more torture planned for us?” Eivor said, still trying to regain full control of his breath. 

“Well, now that you mention it...” Sigurd tucked his hand up under his chin and looked off toward the sky as if he was deep in thought. Sigurd paused for a moment, then cracked a smile and chuckled. An awkward moment of silence settled between them and Eivor watched as Sigurd’s attention shifted, his gaze fixing on something invisible in the distance. Eivor followed his gaze to the harbor where the longships were moored. He could just make out the faint crashing of waves against their hulls in the distance, see birds cackling overhead.

Eivor often caught Sigurd staring at seemingly nothing like this. To anyone else it would appear a day dream, a momentary dip into fantasy. But he knew better. 

To some, Sigurd might seem brash and proud, but he had more than earned the right to be so. Others often mistook his confidence for arrogance, never realizing how truly practical and calculating he was. Sigurd was ambitious, but that ambition was certainly not blind. He approached things from every angle, and left no stone of possibility unturned. When for away looks, such as this, overtook him, it was often because a concern had struck him and his mind was working furiously to identify all of its possible outcomes.

Eivor crossed his arms over his sweaty chest and quietly interrupted him, “Sigurd, where are you now?”

Sigurd looked up at him then, eyes snapping up to meet his own, the lapping waves against wood forgotten. 

“Nowhere, little raven,” he smiled. “You’ve been doing well. You’re running laps around the others and you are unrivaled with that bow of yours...”

“Oh, flattery. Are you going soft on me, Sigurd?”

“I may be hard on you, but I am fair. Good work deserves praise,” Sigurd mused. He inhaled and his tone shifted, “I sometimes worry what trouble your talents will get you in.”

Sigurd leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. He cupped his right hand in his left and rubbed at his knuckles, thumb brushing over the bony ridges. The way the tendons and veins in the back of his large hands slid over one another under his skin did something to him. It tugged at a memory of himself imaging those hands on his head, in his hair… a shameful memory he’d worked hard to bury somewhere dark over these past few months.

“You? Worried?” Eivor scoffed. The mood between them had become oddly tense, as if his older brother could see a future, a possibility stemming from a possibility that unsettled him.

“Do not let your talents cloud your instincts. A man who thinks too highly of his own skills is bound to make a mistake. Never assume you have the upper hand, and always, always be looking for opportunities.”

Sigurd took a deep breath and braced his hands against his knees to stand. With a smile that Eivor knew was reserved for him alone, he clapped a hand on Eivor’s sweaty shoulder.

“Now let’s see how well you do against Vili this afternoon. He handed you your own arse yesterday.”

Eivor scowled. It was true. He hadn’t been on his game and lost his footing, which was all Vili needed to tackle him to the ground and keep him pinned.

“Well, he won’t win the same way twice, of that I am certain,” Eivor said.

He could feel the determination pulsing through him. Especially now that Sigurd was here to observe again, he knew he had much to prove. The praise from moments early still ringing about his head. A thick tendril of want curled around his stomach. He wanted more of it. Everything he did, each lap, each push-up, each arrow he shot — all of it was to prove his worth, to prove he belonged at Sigurd’s side. At least that’s what he told himself. But lately, something darker seemed to lurk just under the surface of that notion. He wondered if that was all it was. It felt good to be at the center of Sigurd’s attention, to know he occupied that space in his mind.

“Vili, you and Eivor will go again today, ,” Sigurd yelled across the field, beckoning the dark haired youth forward. “I have much appetite for seeing you take the piss out of my little brother again.”

Vili jogged over to them obediently. He too had thrown his tunic aside long ago, sweat glistening off his chest and beading along his dark hair line. His tall, slim build made him a challenging match for Eivor, all ropy muscle, quick but able to add considerable heft behind his movements.

“I am hurt that you think me so incapable of defending myself, Sigurd,” Eivor said sarcastically.

“To be fair, Eivor usually wins,” Vili said between deep breaths.

“Be that as it may, you won yesterday,” Sigurd eyed Eivor. “And today is a new day. So, I’m hoping for a repeat of it so I can dream sweetly of the look on my dear brother’s face when you pin his sorry arse into the dirt.”   
  
Eivor slugged Sigurd in the shoulder who, in turn, laughed and clutched at it, feigning hurt. He retaliated, slinging his arm around Eivor’s shoulders and pulling him into a headlock. With his free hand, he tousled his hair playfully.

“Am I meant to be fighting you or Vili?” Eivor yelled, trying to free himself.

“You’re right. Get on with it, then!”

With one last muss of his hair, Sigurd released him, pushing him toward Vili. Vili laughed at their antics and shook out his arms, trying to loosen up a bit from his pushups before they fought.

Eivor grumbled a bit at his hair which had been pulled loose again. He pulled the leather tie out, his sweaty hair falling around his shoulders. It wouldn’t have stayed up anyway so he tossed it to the side.

He turned towards Vili, squaring up, feet spread wide. He flexed his fingers once, then twice, loudly exhaled a large breath then launched himself into a dead sprint right at Vili. 

_ Keep your eyes on me, Sigurd. _


	9. Sigurd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sigurd is maybe just a little jealous, and perhaps even a little bit scared of the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes at the end.

#  **09**

##  _Sigurd_

  
  
  


Sigurd watched the two young men go at it like two bucks in rut, clashing their still-growing antlers, from the sidelines. He wasn’t sure where the fire in their fight came from, but the explosive force with which Eivor had charged at the other boy was… thrilling. He couldn’t take his eyes off of him.

A low rumble in the distance signalled a late summer storm, and it was a matter of minutes before the sky opened up above them. Even as the rain pelted down around them, Eivor didn’t let up; he was focused, ferocious and fighting smart. He dug his heels deeper into the softening earth, positioning himself just as Sigurd had taught him to gain more leverage. Vili launched himself at Eivor, but with a twist of his body managed to deflect Vili’s weight and grabbed his arm, twisting it behind him. Sigurd was impressed with how quickly Eivor had Vili on his back, his wet, muddy hand slapping at Eivor’s muscular back as a sign of submission. 

Both boys were breathing heavily as the rain pelted down around them, leaving streaks of bare skin through the mud. The broad expanse of Eivor’s shoulders as he pressed his weight down on top of Vili held a particular fascination for Sigurd. Eivor must have been climbing in his down time again; the definition across his shoulders, the beautiful, sinuous stretch of muscle and skin that arched from his trapezius along the back of his neck were worthy of great appreciation. And the more he caught himself admiring, the less he trusted his judgment.

Midway through the summer, Sigurd had started to offer sparring with Eivor less. He had himself convinced it was because he’d learned all he could about Eivor’s hand-to-hand combat skills from being on the receiving end, and had more to gain from watching Eivor go at it with someone else. But something hungry and restless inside of him had him dreaming more frequently of a tangle of blonde hair and pink-tinged ears; of cold and smoke. Rather than address the uneasiness those dreams left him with, he figured it was best to ignore them and avoid the entire situation all together. It was better this way, easier.

Sigurd pulled his gaze from the skin and muscle he knew should not be as alluring as it was and looked down at his hands, knuckles white from how hard he’d balled them into fists. Eivor clumsily clambered off of Vili and extended a hand to the other boy to help pull him out of the mud with a soft squelching sound. Both of them took one look at the other, drenched and dark with mud and laughed, Eivor clapping a hand on his wet beck. They stood close as familiar friends. Nothing more than that, Sigurd knew. But somehow he couldn’t help letting a fleeting moment of jealousy curl around his heart. The ease with which Vili touched him, the way Eivor smiled around him, no pretense. It wasn’t so much that Sigurd envied Vili for his closeness with Eivor, but more so the fact that he could be close without feeling like every touch had an ulterior motive, was more than it really was. He hated the way he’d had to start censuring his interactions with Eivor, the confused jumble of emotions inside him making him second guess his every move.

Covered head to toe in mud, Eivor and Vili approached Sigurd, awaiting his judgment. He smiled at them, pushing his darkening thoughts aside, and sent them off to the river to bathe before dinner, threatening them with no ale at dinner if they failed to wash behind their ears.

***

“Well that is something I will never forget,” Sigurd chortled into his ale.

Eivor and Vili sat across from him at the dinner table later that evening, hair still wet from their necessary wash in the river. Moments into their wrestling match a late summer storm had exploded in the skies above. Sheets of rain plummeted down on to the young warriors, and what started off as sparring, ended up turning into a heated, muddy all out grudge match.

“You came at me like a madman, Eivor,” Vili said, tearing off a piece of bread and dipping it into the warm stew on his plate. “I’ve never seen you with a look like that in your eye.”

  
Sigurd watched Eivor quietly take a sip of his ale. Sigurd had to agree, the ferocity with which Eivor had launched himself at Vili earlier had taken his breath away. _Ahhhh,_ _there he is, the drengr,_ he’d thought.

“Pay back. For yesterday,” Eivor mumbled back between bites of food.

“There will be plenty of time to even the score. But in truth, it was a good fight–showed me that there’s more than sawdust between your ears and you actually listen when I teach you things,” Sigurd said proudly.

“It might not seem like it, but we do listen,” Eivor huffed out a small laugh. “And you’re not a  _ terrible _ teacher, it turns out.

Sigurd smiled at Eivor’s smile and was raising his ale to his lips again when he heard his father’s voice boom from across the great hall.

“Sigurd!”

Standing abruptly to make his presence known, he made his way through the great hall to his father’s chambers. Styrbjorn stood tall and proud in the doorway, the lines in his forehead forever set in the permanent state of sternness that Sigurd was all too familiar with.

“Father.”

Styrbjorn’s gaze was fixed across the great hall. Through the haze of smoke and dim evening light, Sigurd followed it, a head of long blonde hair on the other end. Eivor threw his head back in laughter and Vili doubled over the table sharing in the laughter. 

“He is ready,” the low rumble of his father’s voice was clear over the din of the hall.

His stomach churned. He knew it too, had known very shortly after returning. Eivor’s training had been going so well. He was strong and quick, brave and damn near fearless; everything a drengr needed to be. And yet when Sigurd turned toward his father, the thing he felt was sadness. He knew he should be proud of Eivor, of all that he’d accomplished, but he also knew that with this inevitable right of passage would come much pain and an even more inevitable violent end.

To be alive meant that one had a time limit; every moment spent sunning in a field, or playing in a river or touching a lover was a moment closer to death. But for Sigurd, and now Eivor, the countdown felt faster. To be a warrior meant death, whether noble or not (and much of that came down to perspective, Sigurd was not so naive as to not understand this). Eivor’s path had been laid out for him long ago. His right to claim vengeance on Kjotve, his abilities, his stubbornness in everything from climbing too high where Sigurd could not reach him to not dying that night so long ago… all felt pre-ordained, the tapestry of his fate woven long ago.

So the weight in his gut, the empty, yet impossibly heavy sadness he felt in knowing his father was right, did not surprise him. He just wished he’d had more time, Eivor had more time, before this chapter of his life began.

“Winter will be upon us soon and we must prepare and replenish our stores. I want Eivor accompanying you on all of your hunts and small raids. We take what we need, we don’t get greedy. We lost too many good drengr last winter, and I will not have that bold streak of yours putting more at risk,” Styrbjorn lectured, eying Sigurd. 

Sigurd’s voice faltered, “Of course, father.”

_ Of course, father.  _ He repeated the words mockingly in his own head. Every time he’d tried to push on their territory lines, his father would reprimand him for it. Inch by inch they lost lands every year, and Sigurd wondered at what point his father would just give in, roll his pants down and present his naked ass to Kjotve–

Sigurd felt a strong, warm hand on his shoulder.

“You’ve done well with him. Gunnar tells me all about your training him, how he’s grown under your hands.”

His father had impeccable timing for showing him praise, it seemed. Pushing the rather vulgar and admittedly disrespectful image out of his head, Sigurd smiled small. He’d had to take Eivor’s training seriously, for both their sakes. But now, faced with the reality of how little time was left before Eivor would have to put all of his training to the test, his heart felt heavy with a burden he did not fully understand.

“There was not much for me to teach. It’s mostly him just… being himself. He’s observant.”

“Then let us hope he does not pick up on your bad habits, dear son,” Styrbjorn laughed low and warm. 

Sigurd could feel the tightness in his stomach ease. He knew that he was not always the model son his father hoped he’d be, but he knew that whatever their differences were, there was still respect between them.

“Indeed, let us hope,” Sigurd replied, turning once more to look out across the hall. Eivor and Vili had clearly snuck an extra cup of ale each and were slinking out of the hall, Vili’s arm slung casually around Eivor’s shoulders. His dark head leaned in to whisper something in Eivor’s ear which made them both giggle again.

He tried to not let the sharp bite of jealousy pierce the stoic mask he thought he maintained so well, but the blade of it was too sharp and his eyes darkened. Sigurd took a deep breath in an attempt to emptiness that twisted in his gut. A man could only go without food for so long before he either died or snapped. He’d seen it before. Neither outcome was pleasant, but the beast that lurked inside him was getting hungrier, and Sigurd wasn’t entirely sure how to sate it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo boy. I promise it'll pick up after this chapter. It's still a slow burn, but this is sort of the turning point in terms of story/pacing. This ended up getting a lot more complex and in depth than I anticipated. I'm just having too much fun writing these secretly tender bois. I also have become increasingly invested in making sure that their relationship is built on mutual trust and respect, which feels like it needed to be a bit more fleshed out. 
> 
> Thank you all SO much for the kind comments and kudos! I've been having a blast writing this!


	10. Eivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eivor finds out what's in store for him.

#  **10**

##  _ Eivor _

“We leave on the morrow,” Sigurd said, sitting beside him. 

Eivor was perched on the edge of the dock, a fishing line in hand, feet submerged in the cool water. It was a pale grey morning, a thin fog still clinging to the surface of the water. Sigurd’s shoulder brushed his own.

“And where are we going?” Eivor asked. He idly tugged on the line, trying to entice a fish to bite. He hadn’t caught anything, but then again he also wasn’t trying very hard, instead, enjoying the cool morning air and grey sky before the sun burnt it all away. 

“Father says you are to join me on all of our hunts.”

Eivor turned quickly to the taller man beside him. His heart quickening its pace. He had waited for a long time to hear these words. 

“And raids this winter…?” he started, hopeful that he was ready for more than just hunting boar. 

“Yes.” 

His heart skipped a beat. All he had ever wanted was finally here. The years of training, years of following Sigurd like a lost pup, watching his every move, were finally paying off. He tried not to smile. He knew that Sigurd was of two minds about it all. They’d spent countless nights fantasizing about their future exploits, Sigurd animatedly talking about the glory in battle they would achieve together. Eivor loved the way his brother painted epic pictures of blood and glory with his words, loved the way his face warmed and beamed with a childlike wonder at the thought of them fighting side by side, seeking new lands and riches. But just as Eivor knew and shared that excitement for their adventures together, he also knew that Sigurd held a deep fear of it all. Being five years older, Sigurd had that much more experience in battle, had seen that much more gore and horror, and knew that in order for their glorious futures to unfold, a piece of Eivor would need to die, just as a piece of him had. 

Even though Sigurd did not speak of such things, Eivor was not blind to the sadness that set in his brother’s stormy eyes after telling a wild tale of his recent exploits. Sigurd would finish, look upon him and while his face still smiled, chest still heaving with exhilaration recounting the carnage and spoils, his eyes would darken. Eivor knew that look. Many had looked upon him with such an expression, as though they looked upon a child who would never be whole again. Pity, sorrow, whatever it was, Eivor knew it well. And it broke a little something inside him every time Sigurd looked at him this way. 

“Sigurd,” he looked down at the water again. Small ripples radiated for the water where the line broke the surface, “you know I am ready for this.”

He turned to him, eyes locking. His brother’s face was blank, stoic and handsome. 

“I am ready,” Eivor said once again, more sure of himself. 

Something shifted in Sigurd’s expression, softened. 

“I know,” he said. A small smile tugged lightly at the corner of his mouth. 

“I need you to be ready for this too, brother. I need to know you are prepared for this… for me to—“ Eivor stopped short. 

Sigurd’s reached across him, brushing the side of his face with a warm hand, pushing a lock of hair aside that had fallen free. Eivor’s breath hitched, caught in the cage of his chest. He felt calloused fingers brush over the shell of his ear, fixing the stray hair behind it. His fingers subconsciously tightened around the fishing line, his forearms tensing as a small shiver ran tingling down his spine. 

“I am, Eivor. I am with you,” Sigurd said quietly. “I knew this day would come. But no amount of preparation will ease the feeling of seeing you become a man, the  _ drengr  _ you were always meant to be.”

Sigurd’s warm hand lingered at the crook of his neck, his thumb pressed into the small divot of flesh just behind his earlobe. 

“This is what we’ve always wanted, what we’ve always dreamed of. To fight together for our people... each other,” Eivor said, he caught Sigurd’s gaze and held it with earnest intensity. He realized then, how hard it was to not completely yield to that warm hand, lean into whatever touch Sigurd gave him. How hard it was to not desire that touch, to—

“Yes, but dreams always have a price.”

And with a sigh, Sigurd turned, withdrawing his hand. The place where it had been still felt warm, and Eivor knew that the flush he felt rising would betray the composure he was trying to maintain. 

“What did it cost you?” Eivor had never considered the answer to this. He’d never thought to ask what Sigurd’s first kill had cost him, what the price was for glory and riches, the cost of Valhalla. He remembered the night Sigurd told him about his first kill, it had been sloppy and clumsy. Not like the other  _ drengrs’ _ stories, which he oft suspected had far more added color than any of them were willing to admit.

Sigurd thought for a moment, his gaze cast out across the water. The sun had started to crest over the mountains to the east, the last wisps of mist dissipating in the rising temperature of the air. Small jewels of sunlight gleamed on the calm water; a bird let out a haunting cry somewhere in the distance. 

“You,” he said finally. 

A wriggling feeling set into his gut. He felt guilty. He’d been so selfish that day, clinging to Sigurd on the docks as he was about to leave for the first time. He’d only thought of himself, of losing his brother, losing the one thing that remained in this world that he treasured. He had never stopped to think about what Sigurd had left behind, or how his behavior might have made it even harder for Sigurd to do what he needed to do.

Eivor glanced at the older man beside him out of the corner of his eye. Sigurd seemed like he was in another place, maybe another time all together perhaps. The way his face softened as he stared out across the water. He thought that Sigurd looked particularly striking with the salt air in his hair, his eyes reflecting the blue, grey sea. 

“But you are here now, you’re home, Sigurd,” Eivor said quietly. “You always return, like you promise, no worse for wear.”

A half truth. The toll Sigurd’s trips took were evident in the scars and lines on his brother’s body, the fatigue in his eyes, the far off looks.

Sigurd sighed, drawing in a long breath.

“But I missed so much of your life. So much of you becoming this,” he gestured vaguely to Eivor. Eivor half smiled.

“What, I turned into me?” he chuckled.

“You know what I mean.”

He did. He knew Sigurd meant how he’d changed, how he looked more and more like a fierce warrior every day, even if he didn’t entirely feel that way.

“I don’t resent it. You were doing your duty, to your father, our clan.”

“You may not, but I worry that I wasn’t there for you when you needed me. Sometimes I see this… this fire inside you.”

Sigurd paused a moment and looked down to his hands clasped in his lap. Sigurd looked at him again, brows knitted together.

“It scares me Eivor. Fire can be a tool, or it can consume you. If you let revenge fuel that fire, it will burn so hot that it will blind you to reason, burn through you until there is nothing left. Promise me that you will not let that fire claim you. Promise me you will come to me if you feel you cannot control it.”

It was true. He knew there was a desire for revenge lodged deep in his heart. It would sometimes gnaw at him, scratch away at him until the wounds he thought had healed were raw and open again. He usually retreated then, pulled away from others. And while he’d gotten good at sewing up the wounds as best he could and pushing away the beast that clawed at him so, he knew it was there, waiting for a cold, lonely night to start picking at the scabs all over again. There were long, sleepless nights of thinking of nothing else but taking what was owed him from Kjotve, one agonizing pound of flesh at a time.

But he knew Sigurd was right. He’d seen men fueled by their rage, he knew it was a poison of the mind; one that worked slowly and carefully, often without one even realizing it had already done its damage.

“I promise,” he replied. The seriousness in Sigurd’s face made his bowel’s turn watery. He had never seen him look like that before. It was concern, but there was something else behind it, something he couldn’t place.

“Good.”

Sigurd blinked once, took another deep breath then slapped Eivor on the knee.

“Now, are you actually going to catch something or just sit out here daydreaming?”

Eivor laughed and handed him the line.

“Be my guest if you think you can do any better.”

Sigurd hummed, “A challenge. Now  _ that _ , I like.”

They both laughed as the sun rose above the mountains with the unwavering promise of a beautiful late summer day.


	11. Sigurd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sigurd realizes what it is that he's been feeling all this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday! Have TWO chapters!

#  **11**

##  _Sigurd_

He and Eivor spent the day doing the small things they had always done. They fished all morning, with comically regrettable results to show for it. Once the sun had hit it’s peak they’d done a short training session, just the two of them; no Vili, no Algson. Sigurd relished in the way Eivor came alive during target practice, how his pale brows knitted together with concentration, how he bit the tip of his tongue between his back teeth as he aimed his bow.

Though somewhat reluctant to accept, he couldn’t bring himself to deny Eivor when he’d asked for a wrestling match. He’d spent a fair amount of time and energy avoiding situations that would put him that close to Eivor’s sweaty half naked body, but the earnest excitement in his face had Sigurd caving completely to the request. Sigurd ended up surprised by how seriously Eivor took the challenge, and almost best him, but Sigurd managed a last second counter to a particularly devious leg sweep Eivor had attempted and managed to ensnare his arm behind his back and press him into a headlock. Sigurd pressed his weight into Eivor’s back and with a quick jab to the back of Eivor’s legs with his own, brought both of them to their knees, Sigurd’s chest pressing up against Eivor’s back.

They breathed heavily, Eivor laughed breathily.

“I yield,” he tapped Sigurd’s elbow.

Sigurd could smell Eivor’s hair. Cold and smoke, like it had always been. Something stirred low in his belly as he watched a small bead of sweat slide down the side of Eivor’s neck.

“I yield, Sigurd,” Eivor said again, squirming under Sigurd’s grasp.

Realizing he had become absorbed in something he shouldn’t be, Sigurd released his hold on Eivor, who fell forward, catching himself on his hands. Sigurd inwardly laughed. He could imagine what this scene would look like to an onlooker, Eivor on his hands and knees in front of him, both men panting. 

Sigurd made the decision not to call attention to it. This was exactly what he’d been trying to avoid and even joking about it seemed like it was giving power to the otherwise confusing and disturbing thoughts he’d been having all summer.

Eivor crawled forward a bit and dropped his hips to the side, flipping himself over onto his bum. He was still breathing hard, the sun causing him to squint at Sigurd.

“Where’d you go just now?” 

_Shit_. Eivor was far too perceptive for his own good. He sunk back on his heels, hands coming to his hips.

“Just thinking about how we should be packing,” he said dismissively with a grunt as he rose to his feet. He held out a hand to Eivor. The blonde took it and with a firm yank both men were on their feet and headed to the longhouse to start packing what provisions they’d need for a week’s hunting trip.

Preoccupied with preparing for their trip, thoughts of the back of Eivor’s neck were replaced with sharpening blades, and fixing fletching on arrows. They worked well into the night, and finally after Sigurd had deemed their preparations complete, he’d sent Eivor off to bed with a first light’s wake up call.

He returned to his own room. It was empty and cool, his bed crudely made, just the way he’d left it. And it was on the edge of that bed that he sat, chin in his hands, watching the dying fire in the corner.

The embers hissed and his head filled with smoke. Tomorrow he and Eivor would begin the adventure they’d always dreamed of, and yet here, in the glow of a dying fire, alone in his room, he wondered why, if all the things he’d ever wanted were about to come true, he felt so utterly miserable.

The obvious answer was that the cost of his vision of their future came at the glaring possibility that one or both of them could end up dead. That was a very real, very disturbing possible outcome. But beyond that, an uneasiness crept into his stomach again, a dull, frustrating pressure deep inside that made his jaw clench and his stomach tighten.

Something had changed between them. It was small, subtle. It was as if he and Eivor were _aware_ of each other; conscious of each other’s presence in a way that never existed before. Growing up together, he’d never felt as aware of Eivor as he did now. He’d never found himself constantly seeking out the young man, keeping eyes on him, feeling jealous of Vili’s casual closeness. Eivor knew exactly what cards to play to get Sigurd to fold, to abandon the brash exterior he put on. To everyone else around him, Sigurd was loud, opinionated, ambitious and crass. But something about the way Eivor saw through him, _knew_ him, made it impossible for him to maintain that facade. And something in the way that Eivor had started to command his attention, constantly seeking his approval, sparked a possessive streak inside him that definitely hadn’t been there before. He had caught Eivor making sure that he was watching him on several occasions, and could feel the demanding way in which those blue eyes commanded his attention.

He thought about the woman in the green dress from the spring for the first time since he’d bedded her. The look in her hungry eyes as she undressed for him felt dull compared to the way Eivor could fix him in place with a single icy look. Sigurd doubted Eivor knew the effect that he had on others; on him.

“ _Fuck,_ ’ he ground out through his teeth, rubbing his hands over his face.

Tomorrow’s trip would be nothing more than a longer hunting trip, he had little to worry about. To be fair, larger men than Eivor had gone down with a boar tusk lodged in their femoral artery, or stuck in their gut. Sigurd was a skilled hunter, and the other men coming along would mean that they would have numbers on their side and plenty of bows at the ready. But this trip also marked the beginning of their saga. Two young Raven’s carving their story into the land and sea. Whatever the fates had in store for them, he knew–no, _felt_ , that it would be great. But no greatness ever came easy, that much was true.

Leather boots scraping against the rough wooden floor pricked his ears and he looked up. Eivor stood in the doorway, lit only by the dying embers of the fire. His eyes were soft and fire and ice danced within them. With his hair down, loose and wild and his tunic unlaced, revealing elegant collar bones, he looked fragile somehow.

“You should be sleeping, Eivor,” he said gruffly, harsher then he wanted to.

Eivor shifted his weight, and crossed an arm over his chest, wrapping his fingers over the tattoo Sigurd knew was on his arm. 

“Sigurd, I...” he paused, looked down at his feet for a moment then back at him. And in that moment, amidst the haze from the dying fire and soft embrace of what would be the last night of summer, the last night of the boy that Eivor was, Sigurd realized what that strange, frustrating feeling was in his chest was.


	12. Eivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eivor has a vision and calls upon Sigurd's invitation.

#  **12**

##  _ Eivor _

Eivor had tossed and turned in his bed. The air in his room was a frustrating temperature; too warm for furs and yet somehow too cold for nothing at all. Sigurd had sent him off to bed hours ago, but all he’d managed to do was roll around in a near constant state of discomfort.

With a growl he pushed himself onto his side, resting on his elbow. He smoothed his free hand over his face, the short stubble along his jaw catching the calluses on his palms. 

He should be happy. His entire life felt like it had been spent working towards this moment. He’d had to settle for the approval of a surrogate father long ago, but the desire to impress Styrbjorn and his only biological son burned just as hot. Perhaps even more intensely. 

Anxiety pulled at his mind despite his best efforts to stay calm. He and Sigurd had spent far longer away from home camping and hunting. A week’s trip hunting boar should hardly be a cause for concern. But something roiled in his stomach, a doubt had taken root in his mind. 

He knew he was ready; could feel in his bones that he was ready to take this step, to be seen as a valuable asset to the clan. He wanted to provide for his people. Sigurd had been doing this and more for almost five winters now. He’d seen the way his brother’s eyes would shine when he returned home, ships laden with spoils. The way the other men would clap him on the back, the look of approval his father would give him, the celebrations. He wanted it all. He wanted to share in all of that glory with Sigurd. If people still thought him the son of a spineless man who failed to protect his clan, then he would give them no room to say the same about him. 

Kjotve had taken everything from him that night. And if Eivor allowed himself more than a few breaths to think about him he would start to tremble; that fire Sigurd had said he saw in him would catch, fueled by Odin’s breath itself, it seemed. He had spent so long trying to control those flames, hide them, pretend they did not consume him from the inside, did not fill his lungs and throat. Sometimes that rage would fill him so fully that he felt he’d scream, but every time he’d open his mouth, nothing fell past his lips. And with no escape for the heat, the fire continued to smoulder away, burning a deeper and deeper hole inside him.

There was only one release for that kind of pain. And the thought of one day taking Kjotve’s head in his hands and pressing his thumbs to his eyes and pressing, pressing, pressing until—sweating, heart racing and breath hitching, he pulled himself from the gruesome image that had been forming in his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut, fingers squeezing the bridge of his nose. 

He felt a stinging at the back of his eyeballs, and fought hard against the tears that gathered at the inner corners of his eyes under his finger tips. 

_ He should be happy.  _

Throwing himself onto his back, he stared up at the rafters. The sturdy beams that formed the ribs of the longhouse rose proudly above him. He tried to think about the labor required to make those beams, the felled trees and hours of chipping away at them. He tried to focus on something other than the silent rage, Kjotve’s skull, eyes put out and black blood seeping down the sides of his lifeless face. 

Eivor closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He turned his mind to that morning, fishing in the misty morning with Sigurd. He thought of the way his warm hand had felt against the side of his neck, how he wanted so badly to lean into it. He wondered how it would feel to have those fingers tangle in the hair at his neck and tug, just a little. 

With a frustrated groan, he rolled over onto his side and tucked his elbow up underneath his head so his cheek laid against his bicep. He turned his mind away yet again, not sure he wanted to follow the idea of those strong hands on him any further. He squeezed his eyes shut and just breathed. In and out. In and out. A light and fitful sleep took him, but nothing but distressed and lucid visions visited him. 

***

A raspy low voice that was not his own but also his all at once spoke to him. 

_ Eivor, wolf-kissed… reaper of death, sower of blood seeds. _

He stood in a great dark expanse, a bottomless pool of black water beneath his feat. He turned frantically, looking for the source of the voice.

_ Eivor, wolf-kissed… What do you seek? _

A figure appeared in the distance, a warrior, axe in hand, fighting dark, cloudy figures. He would know that stance anywhere. Sigurd.

_ Eivor, wolf-kissed… foolish little raven. _

He saw the demonic apparitions crowd Sigurd, overwhelm him, force him to his knees. He had to get to him, had to save him. So he ran. With every step forward he felt as though Sigurd was pulled two steps away.

He reached for his bow, nocked an arrow and released it, but his arrows were made of lead and fell to the watery ground immediately. He reached for the axe at his hip but it was so heavy he could not raise it from its holster. The darkness pressed down around Sigurd. Again and again he tried to unholster his axe, and again and again he failed. But still he ran.

_ Eivor, wolf-kissed… if you do not know what you desire, then you cannot know the price for it... _

He felt tears in his eyes and a frustration so deep he felt it in his groin. He could not move, he could not fight, he couldn’t see through the thickening haze. Sigurd was gone, enveloped in a growing darkness so thick it threatened to swallow him.

_ Eivor, wolf-kissed… you cannot hope to understand loss if you do not know what you have left to lose... _

Abandoning his weapons, he started to claw at the darkness with his bare hands. His fingers felt nothing but the cold emptiness that pressed against him. Hollow eyes and black mouths crowded his face and he opened his mouth to scream. 

But once again, nothing came out. Nothing but air and a great heaving breath as he startled awake, sweat dripping down his brow. He looked around frantically, trying to gather how long he’d been asleep **.** The candle beside his bed did not seem visibly lower; perhaps an hour at most. 

A great shudder wracked his body as he breathed out, curling into a ball, holding himself like he had that night on the ice before Sigurd found him. 

Sigurd. 

_ Promise me you will come to me if– _

Sigurd’s words rang in his head in the dim light of his room. His body moved without much thought. He picked himself up and crept across his room. Poking his head outside he looked down the length of the great hall, no one was awake. He could hear snores coming from somewhere. He shuffled into the hall and quietly moved along the wall towards Sigurd’s room. If he wasn’t awake he’d leave, he told himself. But something inside him felt like Sigurd might be as restless as he was tonight. 

Eivor paused at the door way, his fingers brushing the carved framing. He listened; he didn’t hear the heavy breathing that fell just shy of a snore that he knew Sigurd made while he slept. He leaned forward just enough to see the red haired _drengr_ seated on the edge of his bed. His face was cradled in his hands, lost deep in thought as he stared into the embers of the small fire beside his bed. 

Sigurd looked sad. Rarely, if ever, would Eivor use that word to describe Sigurd, but lately that far away look in his eyes would take him someplace Eivor couldn’t reach.

He knew that look, though. It was the same look in the eyes of people who had lost loved one’s that same night so long ago. It was likely the look that he had had on his own face for years. It was loss. But Eivor wasn’t entirely sure what exactly Sigurd felt like he had lost.

He took a tentative step forward. The leather boots that he hadn’t bothered to take off in the first place scraped lightly on the floor and Sigurd looked up at him suddenly. 

“You should be sleeping, Eivor,” Sigurd said, his voice low and rough.

Of course he should be. But here he was, middle of the night, practically crawling to Sigurd’s room like he was ten winters old again.

Eivor shifted awkwardly and pulled his right arm across his chest. He grabbed at his left bicep, and rubbed his thumb over the ink below the sleeve of his tunic. Sigurd’s words had brought him here, but he wasn’t sure what he was expecting.

“Sigurd, I...”

Eivor stopped before he could even finish the sentence. Not even really knowing what he wanted to say, he looked at his feet. This was so silly. He should just go back to bed and try to get some amount of rest before they left in a few hours. But something kept his feet in place. He looked back to the man in front of him. The sharp edge of Sigurd’s face glowed, reflecting the smouldering embers beside him and he felt the intensity of his gaze like the low rumble of an avalanche sending snow careening down the side of a mountain.

And just when he felt the silence between them was unbearable, that he’d have to actually say the words, say why he’d come, come up with something,  _ anything _ , to explain why he’d come in the middle of the night, Sigurd’s face softened. Like the first breath of air you take after a deep, long dive in a summer pond, gasping for air, blood pumping and all together both terrified and exhilarated, something inside Eivor cracked. The stinging behind his eyes burned, and he could not stop the tumultuous mix of feelings he’d kept locked away inside any longer.

He tried. Oh, how he tried in that instant to hold the muscles in his face in place, to keep his shoulders square. But with a single ragged breath he felt his resolve dissipate, fizzling into nothing.

“Come here,” Sigurd’s voice cut through the silence. It was low and calm. For a moment Eivor thought he’d be cross, but Sigurd was gesturing to the bed beside him with those big warm hands.

Again, Eivor pinched the bridge of his nose, pulling his eyebrows together in a last ditch effort to not completely break open in front of Sigurd. His feet felt heavy and he felt as though he didn’t have the strength to move.

“Eivor, come. Sit with me.”

With another ragged breath, he pushed all of his remaining will towards his feet and plodded across the room. He sank to the edge of the bed beside Sigurd and immediately leaned forward, elbows digging into his knees. He pressed his face into his hands, his breath loud against his skin.

Eivor would know the weight of Sigurd’s hands anywhere, and when a warmth spread across his back he knew exactly what it was. He’d been craving that touch for so long now.

“Sigurd…” he breathed into his hands. 

He was mortified at the amount of undignified leaking his face was doing. But the warmth on his back continued to soothe.

“What ails you, little rav–” 

“You said to come to you if–” Eivor interrupted. “If I couldn’t–”

Sigurd hummed beside him, the vibration of the sound filling the narrow slip of air between them. He felt Sigurd’s hand slide across his shoulders, felt the taller man wrap his arm around his neck. Sigurd leaned in close, and pressed his forehead to the side of Eivor’s face, his nose resting against his blonde temple.

“Control the fire?” Sigurd whispered against him.

Eivor nodded into his hands, still hiding his face.

“I had a vision,” Eivor whispered.

“What did you see?”

Eivor felt Sigurd’s hand pull at his own, pulling them away from his face. He knew he looked foolish. The visions from earlier had left him torn open and raw.

“That I–that I would fail you… I can’t...”

A lump formed in his throat and he took another heaving breath. Sigurd squeezed his shoulder.

“You could never fail me, Eivor.”

The words were quiet and sincere and Sigurd’s hot breath washed over the side of his face. The next ragged breath he took hitched in his chest for another reason entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting there guys. Be patient. These babes have a lot feelings. Sigurd chapter coming later today/tomorrow.


	13. Sigurd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sigurd finally realizes what the twisting feeling in his gut is.

#  **13**

##  _ Sigurd _

Sigurd Styrbjornson was just shy of 22 winters old when he realized the deep, nagging feeling below his breast bone wasn’t guilt or anxiety. It was  _ want _ . Not just the flaccid kind of wanting one felt when offered an extra horn of ale one did not particularly need, but the kind of wanting one felt throughout their entire person. The kind that made your toes curl, and your blood rush and your rib cage feel too small to hold the beating of your heart. It was a kind of wanting he couldn’t even rightly say he’d ever felt before. There was a difference between needing and wanting. He knew the kind of need he felt when their provisions were running low and he and the other men in his crew had to go without food for several days. He understood that raw, survivalistic feeling of needing food, needing water, needing a warm body to relieve the pent up feeling in his groin.

But  _ this _ . This was different. This was something primal and visceral. He could feel it in his bones, in the very root of his being. It was something so innately simple, yet so frustratingly complicated that the moment he realized what it was, what the tightness in his chest was, it struck him so hard he felt both a fool for not recognizing it sooner and also instantly ashamed of feeling that way about the boy he’d called  _ brother _ for most of his life. He wasn’t supposed to feel this way, couldn’t feel this way, about the young man standing before him now. He still wasn’t sure how it had even happened; what small events must have had to have taken place to turn what was once innocent affection into something much deeper, much darker.

If he paused and allowed himself to think back on the short, but nonetheless vivid, vignettes of memories over the past summer he would perhaps be able to piece together the tapestry of moments that lead to this epiphany. Maybe it was the way the sinewy muscle in Eivor’s shoulders pulled taught under his tanned skin while he trained. Or how his blue eyes would dart to the sea and watch the waves with the same desire for adventure that he too, felt. Or when Eivor blushed deeply and the way his hands fidgeted in his lap at the very mention of fucking. And how his chest would swell and and his gaze would sharpen when Sigurd would praise him. Or how Sigurd would catch him staring at him, as though there was nothing in the world that mattered more; not his father, not the clan, not Odin in his great hall. Just him.

Had Eivor always looked at him in this way?

But here Eivor was before him looking small and fragile in a way he hadn’t looked in years, whispering his name and something inside Sigurd broke apart–cracked wide open and laid bare like a cold breeze passing over a fresh wound. He felt exposed in a way he’d never felt before. Even as he was beckoning for Eivor to sit beside him, as his arm wrapped around him, as he pressed his face to the side of his head, he felt the conflict between his head and his heart tearing at him.

Nothing about this, taking Eivor into his arms, felt wrong. He’d spent the summer so afraid of getting too close, of letting himself have this. And now, faced with the intimacy of this moment, he felt foolish for ever being so afraid of it. Eivor’s warmth, hearing his breath and feeling him tremble beside him made him feel so real, as though everything else in Sigurd’s life was merely a vision, a dream. But feeling Eivor’s pulse at his temple against his nose made him feel like he was feeling the very pulse of life itself, like every breathing thing in the world was somehow one.

A part of his mind yelled at him to stop, begged him to not cross a line that seemed to be just a few steps ahead. And as Eivor told him of his vision, how affected the specters had left him, the want slowly dulled to a simmer. The logical part of his mind pulled him back from that line. It would have been so easy to push and pull the young man beside him in such a way that would leave nothing left between them. But taking advantage of this moment of vulnerability felt somehow repulsive. Whatever this want was, however hot it burned, it was not meant to– _ could not _ , come at the expense of the trust they had between them.

Sigurd sat in silence as Eivor finished recounting his dream. Arm still around the other’s shoulders, he leaned back to give him more space, let him breathe. His other hand held Eivor’s, one large hand covering two smaller ones, applying pressure in a way that aimed to comfort.

“Nothing… I could do nothing, but watch the darkness take you…”

Eivor’s tears had stopped, but for the occasional stutter over a dry heave, a sharp gulp of air choking his words. Sigurd rarely had dreams as vivid as these, but he’d also not lived through the trauma that Eivor’d had. Even as a child, he’d had visions, night terrors such as these. Sigurd often would wake to a young Eivor crawling into bed beside him. Another man might have turned the child away, told him to get over it, but when Sigurd saw Eivor so small beside him, he had not the heart to turn him away. And even though years had passed, Sigurd felt no differently on this night than he had on any of those other nights so long ago.

“Dreams show us many things, Eivor. They can remind us what has happened, what we want to happen, what might happen, what we are afraid of.” 

Eivor turned his face from him at the mention of fear. Sigurd pulled his arm from around Eivor’s shoulders and took Eivor’s chin in his hand, turning his face to look at him.

“What are you afraid of, little raven?” he asked quietly.

Eivor’s eyes did not meet his. This close, Sigurd could see the wetness around them, the small drops of tears clinging to his blonde lashes.

“Losing you,” Eivor whispered, eyes finally meeting his own.

Sigurd knew that that would be the answer. He knew it the day Eivor had begged him not to leave on his first raid. The desperation with which he’d clung to him had made it very clear to him that Eivor’s attachment could be challenging to deal with in the future; for both of them.

“You will never lose me, Eivor. Not in this life, or what lies beyond. Our stories are woven together and nothing can change that.”

Eivor dropped his gaze and lowered his chin. Sigurd loosened his grip, let him have his head, and slid his hand to the back of Eivor’s neck. His fingers smoothed over the bone there.

“How do you know?”

“I don’t have to see something to  _ know _ it to be true. But you cannot let this fear keep you from being who you are meant to be,” Sigurd paused and leaned forward, pressing his forehead against Eivor’s, their noses almost touching. “And Eivor, I have no doubt that you will bring this world to its knees.”

An ember in the fire crackled in the silence that fell between them. Sigurd could feel Eivor’s breathing even out. With a deep, audible breath, Eivor shifted his weight forward, tilting his head to the side and pressed forward into the crook of Sigurd’s neck. Sigurd’s stomach flipped, recalling countless times when Eivor would curl up against him like this when he’d been scared by a night terror. But this time the brush of lips at his throat as Eivor whispered, tugged at his groin and made his pulse quicken.

“Thank you,” he whispered against the collar of Sigurd’s shirt. 

Sigurd felt soft and warm. No one, aside from Eivor, was like this with him. No one showed him this side of themselves to him. He couldn’t even fathom touching another person this way. Comfort was not a thing that was often awarded to him when he was young, and while he might not always be the best at giving it to others, offering it to Eivor was totally natural. 

“Do you want to stay?” he rubbed the palm of his hand over Eivor’s back.

“I’m not a child. I don’t need a glass of warm milk and a cuddle,” Eivor mumbled with a poor attempt at trying to sound tough. Sigurd chuckled lightly and hummed, a low rumble in his chest.

“What if I asked because  _ I _ wanted you to?”

Eivor considered this in silence. A selfish part of Sigurd reveled in the way that Eivor was acting. Eivor hadn’t come to him like this in years, and seeing him like this awoke within him a deep sense of nostalgia. He wished they both could go back to those days; to long days by waterfalls, fishing and long nights looking up at the stars and dreaming about their futures. To the days long before either had much responsibility. He knew this night would be the last time they could dwell in their languorous pasts. This timid part of Eivor would be gone forever, would have to die. A sadness spread through him. He didn’t want to let go of it.

“Ugghhh fine,” Eivor grumbled against him. Slowly, he pulled away from Sigurd and crawled further up the bed, scooting himself over to the right hand side. It was his place. Sigurd always slept on the left, closest to the fire.

Sigurd watched him lie down and turn on his side, back facing the place where Sigurd would sleep. He stared for a moment, perhaps a moment too long, following the shape of Eivor, tracing the line from his head over his shoulders into the valley of his waist, and back over the hill of his hips.

_ Stop this. _

Closing his eyes tightly and moving on a slow exhale, he pulled himself up on the bed and slid his body into the empty space beside Eivor. He did not touch him, just pulled a heavy woven blanket over them both. With a final glance at the blonde head beside him, he rolled over so that they were back to back and closed his eyes.

Just as he was about to drift off the sleep, he heard Eivor shift beside him and felt a sudden warmth at his back; a forehead and two hands bundled together pressing between his shoulder blades.

_ If all you can have is this, you’ll be fine _ .

That lie was the last thought in his head as sleep took him.


	14. Eivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things don't go according to plan.

#  **14**

##  _Eivor_

Blood filled his mouth. He spat it on the ground, coughing and sputtering. This was not how this was meant to go. The ringing in his head grew louder with each labored breath. With shaking hands, he reached for his axe. He could see it not five feet away, the blade buried in the mud. He had to reach it before—a rasping voice cut through the pounding of blood between his ears.

“Look what I found, a lonely raven…”

Eivor started to panic, his breath coming shorter and faster. He pulled himself closer to his axe, he couldn’t tell where he was hurt because everything did. Stars prickled at the sides of his vision. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to slow his breath; tried to recover his senses. With another agonizing heave, he pulled himself forward again. Mud slipped under his boots and the dampness from the soft earth underneath him started to seep through his pants.

“Where is your flock?”

The voice was twisted and inhuman. He could hear the squelch of footsteps from behind him approaching him slowly. He was toying with him. Letting him think he’d be allowed to reach his weapon.

Eivor dug his toes into the ground and pushed against the slippery ground, pulling himself forward once more. _So close_ , if he reached just a little further, he could almost–

“I said, _where_ is your flock?!” 

Pain seared through his scalp as a rough hand grabbed him by the hair at the side of his head. His neck felt like it would snap as the stranger pulled hard. Twisting his body to ease the strain he clawed at the arm, trying to find anything to strike with his fists, anything soft that he might be able to hurt. Through squinting eyes laced with tears, he could just make out the deeply lined and scarred face of the stranger, swaddled in dark clothes, hooded, bear teeth strung along a cord wrapped around his neck.

The stranger was deceptively strong and the vice-like grip on his hair had him nauseous with pain. He could still taste blood, the shield that had struck him in the face laying some ways off. 

“Fuck you,” he spat more blood from his mouth. He knew his lip was split badly, and the side of his face felt like it was shattered. The impact of the shield had caught him entirely off guard. He might have felt stupid for walking into such an obvious trap if he wasn’t fighting with everything he had to stay conscious. 

“Mmmm, it has some fight left in it,” the voice cooed into his ear. His stomach turned, bile rising in his throat as his assailant's stale breath washed over the side of his face. “I know what you are, wolf-kissed. Don’t think we haven’t been watching you. You can hide that mark all you want under this hair of yours, but you will never be rid of what you truly are.”

The man tugged again on his hair and he heard the man inhale deeply, smelling it; smelling _him_. His scalp was on fire. Darkness clouded his vision and his hands fell feebly to his sides, his strength escaping him. 

He closed his eyes. 

_It cannot be over so soon._

He took a breath in through his nose. He could hear the distinctive sound of a knife being unsheathed. His legs were leaden beneath him, no amount of writhing under the hand that held him allowed him to get his footing.

“Kjotve will be so glad to see you…” more rancid breath washed over him. “Or what’s left of you… little raven.”

His stomach lurched. Bile rose in his throat. The way Sigurd’s pet name for him sounded spilling from such a vile mouth was repulsive. No one got to call him that. He swallowed the acrid mix of stomach acid and blood in his mouth and took a sharp breath in. Pain gave way to anger. 

With all of the calm he could manage, he breathed out and moved his arm along his body slowly, reaching, reaching... His fingertips brushed something cold and hard just as he felt the bite of steel at his throat. 

_Sigurd_.

***

Eivor had awoken two days earlier to an empty bed, the place beside him where Sigurd had slept, still warm. His head swam, a mixture of headache and sleep. He felt fuzzy. He rolled over onto his back and blinked a few times, orienting himself. Embarrassment and something else he couldn’t quite put his finger on washed over him. He hadn’t meant to behave so childishly in front of Sigurd. He was surprised at how warmly Sigurd had accepted his sorry state. 

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, going to see Sigurd in the middle of the night like that. He hadn’t done that since he was a child, and while there was a dark part of him that took some pleasure in knowing that he could affect Sigurd like that, take the brutality right out of him, he still felt ashamed for being so weak on the eve of his first true assignment from Styrbjorn Jarl. It was selfish, putting Sigurd in a position like that. But still, the way Sigurd’s hands had felt on his neck and face… the way his nose had brushed across his temple…

A subtle prickle of heat bloomed in his groin. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t had some persistent and unsettling thoughts about those hands over the past few months. Ever since that night in the tub, he’d struggled to draw his mind away from anything else while pleasuring himself. It was like the more he told himself he shouldn’t, he did. The more he told himself to not want, the more his mind shifted his erotic visions away from soft flesh and plump lips to muscled forearms and chiseled jaws. It had been a troubling subject for him, one which he had to keep to himself. He couldn’t decipher whether what he felt was a general shift in attraction or simply about one, _specific_ , person. The rational part of his brain was somewhat relieved by the notion. There was some small comfort that all of his failed attempts, false starts and awkward fleeting encounters with girls might note _entirely_ be his fault.

Eivor scrubbed at his face. _Enough_ , he groaned, pressing his eyes through closed lids to try to relieve some of the pressure that had built up behind them; no doubt from the tears he’d shed just a few hours before. Now was not the time to make an attempt at solving his woefully misbegotten sex life.

Rallying his strength, he worked his way out of bed. He smoothed out his clothes and pulled his hair back in some mild attempt at looking like he hadn’t cried like a child the night before.

The great hall was already alight by the time he arrived. Sigurd and the other drengr who would be joining them on their hunt were already dressed and seated around a long wooden table, heartily partaking in bread and what looked like a stew of some kind. The smell hit him and his stomach grumbled. He should eat now while there was plenty to be had, he knew they’d likely be traveling somewhat light for the next week, which meant they’d have to kill what they ate.

He sat down towards the end of the table, Dag and another young warrior, Ake, occupying the spaces beside him. Sigurd nodded at him with a half smile, a “ _good morning_ ” and an “ _I’d better see you eat that_ ” all wrapped up in one small gesture. He certainly wasn’t going to ignore his empty belly, and took a heaping serving of stew over a warm wedge of bread. The savory mush, however unappetizing it was to look at it, tasted delicious and worked wonders on the fatigue that still clung to his bones.

After the men ate, Eivor helped pack the last of their supplies onto the horses. The group would travel light; clothing, bedding, weapons and knives, empty sacks and crates to load their haul back on a wheeled cart. It would take them three days of riding over the lower elevations of the mountain and down the other side where they knew the hunting would be best. They’d likely hunt for two then make the slower trip home with the added weight of their haul. While the general rule of thumb was to be prepared for anything, no one anticipated any issues outside the usual danger of hunting boar, which, to be fair, was a notoriously dangerous sport.

“Eivor!” Sigurd’s voice called from across the stable. He finished strapping down the tent that he and Sigurd would share and made sure that his bow and large stock of arrows were carefully tucked away before trotting down the row of laden horses until he found Sigurd checking the saddle on his black mare. Sigurd looked positively regal standing next to her.

“What is it? Did we forget something?” Eivor began running through his check list again. He didn’t want to embarrass further himself by having forgotten something obvious.

“No, no,” Sigurd rounded the front of his horse, giving her a gentle stroke along the side of her soft, velvety nose. He reached for something at his belt, hidden from Eivor’s view. “Here. I had Gunnar make this for you. It’s nothing special, but it’s practical and good for skinning rabbits.”

Sigurd held out his hand to Eivor. A knife in a simple leather sheath lay in his upturned palm. The hilt was made from what looked like an elk antler, and had been cut in such a way that the natural curve of the horn fit comfortably in his grip when he picked it up to unsheathe it. The sharp, 6 inch blade glinted in the early morning sun. It was simple and elegant in a natural way that Eivor appreciated deeply.

“Thank you,” he said, smiling wide. Sigurd smiled back and squeezed his elbow gently. It was a gesture of reassurance.

“Keep your wits about you. If you see a young one, its mother won’t be far and they can be of the nasty sort,” Sigurd said, turning the gentle grasp on Eivor’s elbow in two light pats. “Alright, let’s get a move on.”

Sigurd turned and stepped into the stirrup, hoisting his leg over his mount. Eivor stood back as he coaxed her out of the stall, watching as they trotted by. He returned to his own steed, a brown filly with a white blaze on her head. Pulling himself in the saddle, he slid Sigurd’s gift into his boot and took a moment to himself.

_This is it._

He took a deep breath, dug his heel into his horse’s flank and took off after Sigurd, following him toward his future, just as he always had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday!!! 
> 
> Things gotta get a little effed before they can get better. Don't want to lose sight of the reality of their dangerous world. Might have to take a bit longer between chapters (gonna still aim for 1-2 a week). I am sorta reworking the "end" of part one. I'm waffling on a choice which spans the last few chapters, so I don't want to post them too soon. BUT we're getting so close. I'm so stoked you guys have come on this journey with me!! Cannot wait to share the rest, and start on part 2!!!
> 
> Thoughts on whether I should make part 2 its own thing? Or just keep going on this but make a delineation? I don't really know what the standard way of doing things like that are. Been outta the fic writing game for 15 years...


	15. Sigurd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sigurd fears he might relive a nightmare.

#  15

##  _ Sigurd _

The first day and a half of their trip was uneventful. He and Eivor were accompanied by eight other men and women, all but two were part of Sigurd’s normal raiding party. The other two were hunters by trade, and knew more about the proper way to care for the remains of the beasts they felled; what parts to take back and what to leave behind. While he was an accomplished hunter on his own, he always appreciated the additional tracking skills and wet work that the hunters brought to the table. He cared little for the skinning and butchering, and even less for hunting the small, tedious game that they’d have to eat and kill on the trip.

The heat of summer had gone, replaced with cool mornings and mild sunny days that gave way to crisp nights. The further into the foothills they got, the cooler the air became. Snow loomed like a crystal studded blanket in the highest peaks. Winter would come soon, he sensed a shorter harvest season. The elder of the two hunters, Troels, agreed with him over roasted rabbits the night before. He knew the migration patterns of the birds and other fauna, and had noticed indications that the weather grew colder much earlier this year than year’s past.

It was riskier, but more rewarding  _ (see author’s note) _ to raid in the winter when supplies were hoarded and the cold had sunk in. If you knew how to strike quickly and how to maneuver the terrain and any inclement weather, and use it to your advantage, you could make quick work of settlements and other homesteads. But the flip side was the cold. One wrong decision and you were dead. The cold did not forgive. Raiding in the summers had stopped proving as lucrative, and spread their forces too thin, so the Raven Clan had had to improvise and devise new methods. It was easier to protect their own lands during the summer by keeping their warriors home. Besides, Sigurd preferred smaller, more aggressive raiding parties where it was easier to move quickly and quietly.

Battle tactics was where much of his attention was as the group worked their way to their destination. His father had become increasingly adamant on fortifying defenses and only sending raiding parties out when necessary. The amount of allies and smaller clans pledging fealty to his father had dwindled over the years thanks to Kjotve’s ever-expanding reach. But even this defensive approach was becoming harder and harder to maintain. Kjotve’s forces had become increasingly bold over the years, and with that confidence, came unpredictability. Just a few years before, intel on their movements was easier to get, their assaults usually thwarted with minimal casualties. But something changed in their approach. Their scouts had become harder to sniff out, their movements more covert and the timing of their attacks on Raven lands more sporadic and random.

It was that which had him worried. It had been months since they’d been able to gather any meaningful intel on Kjotve, and he couldn’t tell if it was because they weren’t doing anything, which he doubted, or if he and his men had just missed any and all signs as to their plans. While he hoped for the former, he knew it was the latter. He had no idea how they were so quickly able to adapt their tactics. It was as if someone had completely rewritten the book for them. It left him anxious, especially now that Eivor was of age. He knew how dangerous an ambush could be, he’d seen the damage first hand and had lost several good men and women over the last several years.

Laughter sounded from behind him. He turned and saw Dag gesturing wildly and Ake laughing beside him on his horse. Eivor rode just behind them and looked as though he was stifling a laugh, trying not to feed into whatever inane story Dag was inevitably recounting.

The path ahead of them grew slowly steeper as it wound further up the roots of the mountain. Rushing water echoed off of the steep rock face to his right, the waterfall he and Eivor used to go to when they were kids, indicating that they were nearing the halfway point. The forest to his left was dense and lush with undergrowth. He took a deep breath, taking a rare moment to feel the magnitude of the beauty around him, and just as he thought about how one day this land would be his, chaos erupted behind him. 

A high pitched whistle streaked past his head as an arrow struck the ground in front of him. He whipped his head around. Men on horses scattered, one of his drengr was pinned beneath a horse that had taken an arrow to its breast and was flailing through its death throes. 

He quickly dismounted, pulled his shield from his back and slapped his horse on its rump sending it whinnying ahead up the mountain path. The arrows had come from the dense forest to the left. None of the arrows embedded in the ground or the dead horse were at an angle that would suggest they were coming from both sides of trail. Besides, there wasn’t much between the road and a steep rocky face that cradled one side of the waterfall. Shielding himself from the dense line of trees, he quickly scrambled behind a large stone along the side of the path.

With a moment to gather his wits, he finally had time to realize that he hadn’t seen where Eivor had gone. His visibility was low from his position, the path they had been traveling along curving back and down the mountain out of sight. No Eivor, no sign of this horse. 

_ Shit. _

He saw Dag and Ake crouched further down the trail behind a rock outcropping, both working on a plan to try to pull their fallen brother out from under his horse without themselves taking an arrow. Sigurd knew it was pointless, his legs were undoubtedly crushed, and the stillness that had settled upon him did not bode well for his survival.

Lifting his shield again, he made a run to Dag and Ake’s position, keeping as much of his body covered from enemy fire as possible. The second he came out from under cover he heard another whistle and a  _ thunk _ as an arrow struck by his feet. 

_ Thunk.  _ Another arrow lodged into the wooden face of his shield. He ran as quickly as he could in his crouched position. Several more arrows landed around him as he managed to slide behind the rock where his men were hiding. 

“Where are the others? Where is Eivor?” Sigurd choked out. His heart was in his throat and he could feel his blood pumping furiously. 

“I don’t know, he was—“ Dag started. 

“He was right beside you!” Sigurd bellowed. 

“Sigurd, calm down. We’ll find him. But we have to get this under control first.”

Right.  _ Right. _ Dag was right. He calmed himself. Denying the truth of the situation and being rash were only going to get more people killed, or maybe worse. He reminded himself that Eivor was quick and cunning and that they’d talked about what to do in this kind of situation. Find cover, find it quickly, and if not, shields.

“How many do you mark?” Sigurd asked. He looked at the arrows in the ground and tried to measure how many archers there were based on the pattern on the ground. With the forest being as dense as it was, they likely weren’t able to move quickly enough to make their numbers appear larger 

“Five or six,” Ake said. Sigurd had to agree and gave him a nod. 

“We need to know our men’s positions, see if we can’t get the upper hand. They have superior cover and will not yield it willingly. They are unlikely to meet us in open battle, so we must bring the fight to them. Stay low, stay quiet.”

Ake and Dag nodded, and crept along the backside of the rock outcropping. Sigurd needed a bow and needed one fast. Stupidly, his was still strapped to the back of his horse. Peering from behind the rock he saw the dead horse, its rider crushed beneath it, the dead drengr’s bow still strapped to the upturned side of his horse. Steeling himself with three short, loud breaths through his nose, he lunged from behind the rock toward the dead horse, shield raised. There was a brief moment of peace as he shimmied forward, but sure enough  _ thunk, thunk _ . He cursed. This was not good. Quickening his pace, he closed the distance between him and the bow,  _ thunk _ . He fumbled with the ties around the bow with his free hand, but eventually freed it. Slinging it over his shoulder and grabbing arrows from the quiver, he began his retreat to cover.

A silence fell over the world as he worked his way back. The arrows stopped. Just as he rounded the large stone, he heard yells from the woods across the way. He couldn’t tell to whom they belonged. He was blind.

Sigurd paused for a moment, waiting for any signs or sounds that would help him piece together the scene. He made his way along the rocks, ducking and lunging between them to keep the stone barrier between him and the forest as much as possible. He figured if he could at least regroup with Dag, Ake, and gods willing, the others, they’d stand some kind of chance.

An arrow whizzed past his head and hit stone. He quickly nocked an arrow and pressed his back into the stone. He listened. The yelling had stopped and silence once again bore down on him with an unnerving weight. Another arrow whizzed past him. If they could see him, it meant there was a line of sight. Sinking low he peered around the stone just enough to see a wedge of the dense forest across the path. Slowing his breath to hear more, he sat perfectly still, bow poised. A cloud high above shifted, sliding across the sun and sent a beautiful burst of light down around him. For a split second the sun glinted off of something metallic in the bush.  _ There _ . He couldn’t be certain if it was one of his own men or not, but he was pretty sure that it wasn’t. Taking the only chance he felt he’d get, he pulled back on the bow string, his fingers grazing his cheek. He released the arrow when he saw the glint of metal shift slightly, bringing the figure better into view. The fletching flew through his fingers and as soon as the arrow had cleared he took cover again and listened.

He heard the tell tale grunt of a man who had just taken an arrow. He had no way of knowing if it was lethal, but he’d definitely hit him.

Just then he heard a commotion beside him. Dag, Ake and three others from their party emerged beside him. Still no Eivor. Dag could sense the words before they even left Sigurd’s mouth.

“He took to the forest when the fight broke out with Troels. We found two of theirs dead. Arrows. We managed to get two more but we–”   
  
“Dag,” Sigurd’s voice was stern and dark. His panic started to rise again. “Get to the point. So we got four, I managed one, though I do not know if they’re injured or dead. We still don’t know how many there are, and Eivor is still out there.”   
  
He motioned to the forest across the way. 

“Sigurd…” Dag started, his tone suddenly shifting. “We– we found Troels’ body in the woods. No sign of Eivor, no sign of a struggle. They were clean wounds, he bled out quickly.”

Sigurd swore. Dag reached out to Sigurd, but thought twice about touching him.

“I say we find out if the one you got has any breath in him. Perhaps we learn something useful.”

With a dazed nod, Sigurd motioned to his men to bring their shields up. Where had Eivor gone? Slowly, they made their way as a unit toward the patch of trees Sigurd had fired his arrow. They didn’t have to travel too far into the undergrowth before they heard the wheezing, gasping breaths of the arrow’s recipient. Sprawled on the ground was an older man dressed in dark clothes. He had very little armor, and the arrow had pierced him straight through his chest just below his collar bone. The metal that had caught his attention, Sigurd realized, was a silver brooch that fastened his cloak around him, just inches above where the arrow now stood.

Sigurd’s rage started to boil as the man let out a breathy laugh.

“How many of you are there,” he said, low and menacing.

With a wheezing gasp the man said, “We are many.”

Sigurd frowned. Balancing his weight on one foot, he extended the other forward and toed the shaft of the arrow, widening the seeping wound. The man gasped, eyes widening.

“Tell me how many.”

“You ravens, are all the same,” he coughed and sputtered. Sigurd pushed his toe further, blood freely flowing, soaking the dark fabric wrapped around the man’s neck. “You lose the forest through the trees…”

Sigurd removed his boot from the arrow and kneeled down so that he could get on the man’s level; look into his eyes.

“Tell me,” he pulled an arrow from his quiver and with all the force he could muster, plunged it into the man’s thigh. The man howled and Sigurd raged over his screams, “–how many!”

He twisted the arrow and the man writhed beneath him.

“Six!” he screamed. 

Sigurd looked up at Dag. They’d gotten four, this sorry piece of shit would make five. That left one more, and they still hadn’t found Eivor. Sigurd stood, eyeing the man at his feet. This whole thing was wrong. Eivor missing was wrong. His stomach churned uncomfortably.

“You think this is about you…” the man croaked. Much to Sigurd’s disgusted surprise the man smiled then, pulling his dry lips into a twisted, pained caricature of happiness. “More will come. And we only came for one.”

_ Eivor. _

Sigurd’s heart stopped, his fists clenching so hard his fingernails dug into his palms. With a single swift and merciless movement, he pulled his axe from its holster and brought it down right between the man’s eyes. The sickening crack of cleaved bone echoed through the trees, blood spraying across the mossy ground.

He could worry about how this had all come to pass after he’d found Eivor. Blood and howling wolves filled his mind, and he begged whatever gods might be listening to not force him to relive the horror he had already had to suffer through once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Author's Notes: This whole raiding in winter thing is totally made up and I have absolutely zero information to either say this is good/bad/true/false haha. Somehow this tactically made sense to me? Or at least felt like it could provide some sort of advantage given certain circumstances. I'm also completely fabrication much of the Raven Clan "health" and political/inter-clan drama at this point. So likely much of this element of the story from here on out is completely non-canon or I just don't have enough information to make it canon-adjacent. 
> 
> Other than that.... AGAIN, as always! Thank you you all SO much for the kind words. There have been some truly lovely comments left, and I cannot tell you how much each kudo and comment means to me. I did not intend for this to get as big as it has, and there's WAY more.... like.... so much more.


	16. Eivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eivor recovers and comes to a decision.

#  **16**

##  _ Eivor _

  
  


It was over so quickly that Eivor could hardly remember it happening. Blood covered his hands and much of the side of his head and face. He could feel it dripping down the side of his head, leaving a slick curving trail behind his ear.

One chance was all he’d had, and he’d gotten lucky. The moment played in his mind over and over again as he stared into the lifeless eyes of the man on the ground before him. He could still feel the searing pain from where the man had grabbed his hair; his scalp still burning from it. His axe still lay just over an arm’s length away, its blade still buried in the mud.

The man had been distracted, too busy taunting him to realize that Eivor wasn’t reaching for his axe anymore. He’d been reaching for his boot, where he’d stowed the knife Sigurd had given him not two days earlier. It was the one mistake the man had made, and the only one he needed to make to give Eivor enough time to get his fingers around the antler hilt.

Eivor touched the side of his head. Thankfully the blood there was not his own. The man had howled like an injured dog when Eivor’d brought the blade down on his hand and the fistful of his hair still clutched within. The blade had been sharp and true, the two fingers and tangle of blonde hair on the ground beside him evidence of the quality of its make.

Something inside him had snapped. It was like he was no longer one with his body, like it was someone else hurling his body into the man, someone else plunging the blade into him repeatedly. Over and over and over. He’d lost count after six and couldn’t bring himself to look at how many more holes he’d put in him. There had been no grace, no elegance, no accuracy. Just a brain sending signals and muscles reacting, primal instinct taking over.

It hardly mattered how he’d done it, he supposed, just that he’d survived.

The way the man’s voice sounded when he’d said “ _ little raven”, _ putrid and wrong, rattled around in his head. His stomach turned over and he fell forward onto his hands and knees and vomited. He felt like he was being torn apart, spent muscles contracting with each heaving gasp. When finally he felt as though there was nothing left for his stomach to yield, he gave himself a moment to catch his breath and spit on the ground, trying to clear the taste of blood and bile from his mouth. He pushed himself back to sit, the soft earth squelching around him.  _ What fucking mess.  _

They’d been watching them, following them. These men knew exactly who they were, who  _ he _ was. The attack was so sudden and cunning that it had separated their group instantly. In the first moments of the encounter, Troels, the elder hunter in their group, had grabbed him and pulled him into the forest while the others had retreated behind the rocks on the other side of the path. Troels was smart and quiet, and Eivor had immediately picked up on his plan–using the very cover their assailants were using against him. It had worked long enough for Troels to drop two men, the first he’d spotted with eagle eyes some distance away, just by the rustle of leaves in a bush. But whatever advantage they might have had slipped away when Dag, Ake and two other drengr had stormed loudly into the brush, their cries distracting enough for Eivor’s attention to break. In the time it had taken to register the commotion and look back, Troels was lying in a pool of his own blood, gasping for air, as the man he’d just cut to ribbons grinned over him with a taunting smile.

He’d seen red. He knew not to give chase when the man took off, he knew he was trying to separate Eivor from the others. But his limbs did not seem to care and moved on their own. Even as he crashed through the underbrush, madly pushing branches aside, he knew something was off, but the image of Troels with blood on his lips, mouth opening and closing like a fish on a dock waiting for its belly to be split, pushed reason aside. The body on the ground could have just as easily been Sigurd, and for all he knew in that moment, Sigurd was already dead.

The searing pain that tore through his face brought him quickly and painfully back to reality. He hadn’t seen the man hide, and did not see the shield until it had connected with his face. The shield in question lay some ways off, his blood smeared across the front. It was a crude shield, jagged metal strapping ringing the edge of it and sharp rivets scattered across its front.

He was lucky to be alive.

A light rain started to fall. At some point during the skirmish, the sun had sunk behind a bank of clouds, and the mountain air shifted. The weather here was unpredictable, but the fine droplets of cold water felt good on his skin. It was hard for him to tell how badly he was injured when everything hurt so damn much. His nose wasn’t broken thankfully, the man had been hiding behind a tree, and the odd angle he’d had to maintain to keep his position hidden meant that most of the impact had been to his cheek and jaw. He gingerly touched a hand to his lip, wincing as he felt the edges of torn flesh there. That explained the blood in his mouth, though he still wasn’t entirely sure how bad the cut was.

A numbness set into his body, the adrenaline leaving his blood in a rush as a chill ran through him. He was still queasy, and as he tilted his head back to look up at the darkening grey sky, beautiful and angry just like Sigurd’s eyes, fatigue set into his bones, threatening to pull him under. He felt as though that sky would swallow him whole, press its weight down around him, and he would simply be nothing and cease to exist if only he would surrender to it. The thought should have scared him, but somehow the idea of being lost in something so familiar, so vast and so beautiful was a comfort. As he collapsed back into the soft cradle of muddy earth beneath him, he could have sworn he heard someone calling his name.

He knew that voice.

He loved that voice.

***

He awoke four days later in a cold sweat, the weight of furs smothering him. The room around him spun, disorientation striking him hard as he gasped for air in the stifling heat. Scraping boots against wood signalled someone’s presence but his head swam, a deep headache setting in as the room around him settled. A weight pressed against his chest, firm, but not painful, which managed to help ease his panicked breathing. 

Someone said his name, but it sounded far away, like someone calling out to him across a misty lake.

_ Eivor _ .

His face hurt, his head pounded.

_ Eivor. _

He tried to move his limbs but they were dead weights under the sweat soaked furs.

_ Eivor _ .

He clawed at consciousness, the darkness he’d been stuck in threatening to pull him back under as his senses struggled to return to him.

_ Eivor, breathe _ .

He couldn’t tell if it was his own mind speaking to him or someone else.

_ Breathe. _

Squeezing his eyes shut tight, he inhaled, feeling the weight on his chest rise against his ribcage and press down again when he let the breath escape through his nose.

_ Again _ .

The rise and fall of the weight against his chest became steadier, less ragged and desperate.

_ Good, again _ .

He complied, trying to focus only on his breath and the voice, which had started to sound familiar.

“Eivor,” the voice sounded clearer this time, as though he was breaking through the surface of water he’d been drowning in. He opened his eyes once more and tried to orient himself. The heavy wood beams overhead were familiar, the high dark ceilings looming beyond them. Cinders and sweat filled his nose, the sound of his own breath barely audible over his own blood pounding in his ears.   
  
“I’m here,” the voice said quietly. Eivor blinked and managed to turn his head slightly, his neck stiff. There wasn’t really a word for the color of Sigurd’s eyes, but in this moment, in the glow from a fire somewhere beside them, they appeared to Eivor like the flames of a great battle, heat and smoke, reflecting on the cold dark waters of the sea.

He knew those eyes.

He loved those eyes.

“Sig–,” he choked out, his throat dry. The weight on his chest disappeared; Sigurd’s hand, he realized. A warmth slipped behind the back of his neck and head, as Sigurd pulled his head up slightly, something wet and cool pressing to his lips.

“Shhh,” Sigurd hushed him. “Drink.” 

The cool liquid filled his mouth, relieving some of the scratchy tightness in his throat. Sigurd lowered his head back to rest on the pillow and smoothed the back of his hand over Eivor’s forehead. 

“Rest, little raven. You’re home.” Sigurd’s hushed words sounded far away again as he closed his eyes and let the darkness take him once more.

***

Another two days of restless fever dreams plagued him. He drifted between his waking life and the dark, icy cold of visions that seemed to show him the same thing over and over again. Always the voice, always whispering poison laced wisdom into his ears, telling him to seek glory at the price of cruelty. When he did surface, Sigurd was almost always at his bedside. Sometimes he’d be asleep, long legs crossed, ankle over knee as he leaned back against the wall. Eivor would watch the rise and fall of his chest and struggled with the urge to touch him, to know that in this moment, the Sigurd in front of him was real and not lost to darkness and blood like in his visions. He reached out once, but his fingers touched nothing but air before another wave of exhaustion took him.

***

“If you wanted a haircut, you could have asked me,” Sigurd said four days later. His voice sounded strained, like he was trying to make light of something that likely should have remained solemn. They were in Eivor’s room, bellies full from dinner. Sigurd had finally convinced him to do something about the ragged mess he’d made of the side of his head when he’d used Sigurd’s gift to free himself from the man’s grasp. There had been several long days of mostly silence between them. Eivor was still trying to piece together what had happened, and reconcile his own foolishness in how he’d handled himself with how thankfully unscathed he’d come out of the whole ordeal. He’d let his rage get the better of him.

Eivor had rallied for the most part. He had been able to get himself out of bed on his own and take a walk around the longhouse with Sigurd; the first daylight he’d seen in over a week. 

Sigurd had filled him in on what happened; how they’d found him unconscious, covered in blood and mud and missing quite a bit of hair on the side of his head. A sadness fell over them when Sigurd had told him that both Troels and the drengr who’d been crushed by his own horse hadn’t made it. Thankfully, the others were largely unharmed. They’d had to abandon the supplies on the hunter’s cart to make room for Eivor, and it took them nearly twice as long to make the trip home, much to Sigurd’s agitation and anxious dissatisfaction.

Eivor shifted on the small stool he was perched on and fidgeted with the small polished disk of metal in his hand that Sigurd had scrounged up for him so that he could see his reflection. The shield that had been used to damn near knock his head off had left a long, jagged cut across the left side of his cheek. It wasn’t particularly deep, but it would definitely scar. A narrow cloth bandage soaked in salve was stuck to it now and hid the angry red wound beneath it.

Sigurd stood behind him, inspecting the side of Eivor’s head. A large chunk of his long hair was missing from behind his right ear. Eivor had been too out of it and borderline catatonic in the days following him waking up that he hadn’t cared to think about addressing the lopsided haircut he now had. He angled the reflective piece of metal so he could see the deep bruising across his cheekbone and circling his eye, the bandage on his face and the hair sticking out at odd angles; he looked a right mess. It was a wonder Sigurd hadn’t joked more about his appearance, quite frankly.

He ran his finger tips through the short hair behind his ear and felt the lines of raised flesh at the back of his skull. He traced one the scars down to where it ended on his neck, a reminder of all the things he’d lost long ago.

“They're still there,” he said quietly and dropped his hand back to his lap, hanging his head forward. He heard Sigurd shift behind him. Fingers grazed the back of his neck, pushing hair out of the way. A small shiver ran up his spine. 

“That’s the thing about scars, they never really go away. Even the invisible ones linger. But they remind us of the things we’ve done, who we are, victories, losses, the things we’d rather not be,” Sigurd replied. His voice was low and soft.

Eivor considered this for a moment, then turned in his seat to look up at Sigurd.

“Will you cut it for me?” Eivor’s voice was small. He paused a moment and suddenly straightened, like a string was being pulled taught from the top of his head. He held Sigurd’s gaze intently, a faint edge of danger creeping into the next words he uttered, “I’m done hiding who I am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't want to leave you guys hanging! Gonna have the next chapter up on thursday!
> 
> Chapters following the next might have a slightly longer wait, i'm only really 5-6 chapters ahead of posted chapter and I'm working through some turning point plot choices right now that has kept me in a bit of re-working the same three chapters and changing small details loop.
> 
> That said, will likely include some sketches soon! I've been working on the tattoo design that Eivor has (will explain in a later chapter, I actually went back to chapter 1 or 2 and changed that tattoo design. It was something I really want to bring back later and jumped the gun with what it actually looked like).
> 
> I JUST finished the main game last night (holy heck.. 110 hours later). Honestly... I had like... a lot of feelings... mostly because I've been writing this story having NOT finished the final Norway arc. It gave me so many ideas and also really changed my perception of the end. I did not expect to have as many feelings as I did, but spending so much time developing their relationship felt even more heartbreaking/bittersweet at the end. I definitely still have plans to take this story up until Sigurd leaves for Constantinople. And originally I had plans to do POST game... but I'm actually thinking about how the final arc could potentially be reworked/reimagined to actually incorporate my take on their relationship... so we'll see. First things first tho, and these babes gotta work out their heckin' feelin's
> 
> As always, thanks so much for reading and being so kind!


	17. Sigurd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sigurd realizes where there's smoke, there's usually fire.

#  **17**

##  _ Sigurd _

Eivor’s face was hard set and fierce as he looked at Sigurd. A lump started to form in his throat as he looked down at him, the skin around his cheeks red and purple, the fabric bandage laid over the cut across his cheek a reminder of a horror that could have been. Eivor was lucky.

_ We both were,  _ the voice in his head said. He’d been so out of his mind with worry he had practically torn the whole forest down looking for Eivor. It was fortunate that the other young, female hunter had managed to find cover and hide. She’d used her tracking skills to follow the path of broken branches and footprints Eivor and his assailant had left behind deep into the woods.

Sigurd had had to work hard not to vomit when they found Eivor. He couldn’t be sure whose blood was whose and Eivor’s face was so completely wrecked he had expected the worst. It was like that night, all over again. His worst nightmare playing out right before his eyes all over again, like the gods were playing some sick trick on him. He could still taste the relief he’d felt when he’d pressed his ear to Eivor’s chest and heard his heartbeat thumping slowly, but steadily away.

Eivor’s voice broke him out of his thoughts.

“Sigurd…”

“Yes, of course. I’ll cut it for you,” Sigurd smiled and went over to the small table beside Eivor’s bed to grab a small, curved shaving blade. “How do want me to–”   
  
“Like yours on the side. Down to the skin,” Eivor once again put his fingers against the scars at the back of his head. “I’m done hiding them. I’m done pretending that they aren’t there. Let it remind people what Kjotve did to us. To me. Maybe then they’ll find it within themselves to fight back against his cruelty.”   
  
Eivor paused and turned his back again to Sigurd. He’d never heard Eivor speak of that night, or his scars like this before. It was something he tried to forget, tried to hide from. He’d grown his hair out to hide them, and would glare at anyone who called him wolf-kissed. Sigurd had seen him prescribe so much hate and anger and shame to those raised lines of skin over the years. Eivor’s body language changed. Whereas just moments ago he’d been proud and defiant, now he seemed deflated and tired. His shoulders slumped forward, and his head sunk as he stared at his hands in his lap.

“Maybe,” was all Sigurd could think of to say. He closed the space between them and stood squarely behind Eivor. Using his fingers, he traced a line from Eivor’s forehead to the nape of his neck with his finger, and parted the uneven lengths of hair. Using the fine curved blade in his hand, he made quick work of cutting the long pieces down close to his scalp. Long tendrils of hair curling at his feet as he worked. Eivor remained silent, the only sound between them the sound of the blade cutting through hair and their breathing. 

When all that was left was the short layer of hair at Eivor’s scalp, Sigurd slowed his movements. He cupped Eivor’s jaw and tilted his head back so that it was almost resting against sternum. He started shaving the hair down to Eivor’s skin in slow gentle movements, using his free hand to adjust the angle of his head. Eivor’s eyes were closed, his blonde lashes fanning out beautifully. 

The intimacy of the moment struck Sigurd, the trust Eivor had in him entirely complete as Sigurd held the blade against his skin, his other hand at his jaw and throat. You could not buy this, or claim it in battle. This was true wealth, freely and willingly given, and Odin help him if he ever took for granted what it made him feel like to have someone give themselves like this to him. He stayed his hand as a small tremble ran through him, as though his skin could no longer hold him together. Eivor opened his eyes, looking up at him through pale lashes. 

“Are you alright?” he said quietly.

“Aye,” Sigurd replied curtly and returned to his task. Eivor closed his eyes again, relaxing back into Sigurd’s hands. Eventually he needed to tilt Eivor’s head forward so he could do the back of his head, and with his focus settling back into his bones, he made relatively short work of it, being careful when he came to raised, scarred skin. He let out a low hum as he finished the final drag of the blade over the skin at the base of his neck. Setting the blade aside, he turned back to Eivor to admire his work. It was striking; the strip of bare skin running down the side of his head. His scars were totally exposed, skin stretched, shiny and pink. Sigurd could still remember what they looked like fresh.

Whatever part of his brain that had scared him away from getting too close over the summer, had made him second guess himself every time he touched Eivor, seemed to be silent now. He reached forward, fingers grazing over fresh skin, tracing the curve of his skull as it arched behind his ear. 

“You are brave, little raven. You always have been,” Sigurd said softly, almost a whisper. He traced one of the raised lines. Eivor shivered under his touch, but stayed quiet. Gods he wished he knew what was going on inside his head. He started to pull his hand away when Eivor spoke; so quietly, he almost missed it.

“Don’t stop.”

Sigurd’s heart dropped into his stomach. Did Eivor know what he did to him? How he made him feel invincible and alive and at the same time scared absolutely senseless. His mind went into overdrive, searching through his internal ledgers, looking for reasons not to. But every excuse felt flimsy and collapsed when put up against the young man in front of him. 

“ _ Please _ .”

With one word, it all crumbled. All resolve, all reason, all pretense. Sigurd took a ragged breath, his heart pounding in his breast. He’d never been so aware of his ribcage before. With trembling hands, he reached forward once more, one hand cupping the side of Eivor’s head so that his thumb caught behind his ear and his fingers brushed against his jaw. His other hand returned to the bare skin he’d just exposed again. He could feel Eivor’s pulse beneath his fingers, a reminder that he was alive and this was real. He felt Eivor’s breath hitch in his chest and as he exhaled he leaned into Sigurd’s hand, positively melting into his touch. 

“Eivor,” Sigurd breathed. He felt Eivor reach across his body and warm fingers brushed against the hand that had been tracing the old nightmares they both shared. Sigurd let him slide his fingers over the back of his hand and gently grasp his wrist. Let him pull his hand across Eivor’s face as he turned into it, nose grazing his palm, his body pivoting on the stool. Eivor breathed against his palm as he guided his hand to rest on his bruised cheek.

Somewhere in all of this Sigurd stepped closer, their bodies so close now that a breeze might not have the strength to pass through the space. He didn’t know where this was going, but Eivor seemed to be leading the way. Normally it was him that was being chased, but it seemed the other way around now. He reminded himself to breathe.

“Say my name again,” Eivor mouthed into the heel of his hand, his lips grazing the bone at the root of his thumb.

“Eivor,” he said slowly.

“The other one.”

“Wolf-kissed.”

Eivor closed his eyes. Sigurd adjusted his other hand, sinking his fingers into blonde hair, closing his grip just gently enough to tilt Eivor’s face towards his. Blue eyes snapped open and locked onto his.

“Not the one  _ they _ gave me, the one  _ you _ gave me.”

Sigurd stared down at him, completely unable to look away from the fierce, bruised face in his hands–still heart achingly beautiful even through the purple that marred his skin. His eyes fluttered as he breathed in through his nose, tilting his head slightly.

“Little raven.”

His voice was honey pulled from the hive at just the right time in spring, smooth and sweet. The way the dark parts of Eivor’s eyes expanded and his eyebrows pulled together slightly had heat growing in his belly.

Eivor inhaled deeply through his nose and exhaled through his mouth, his lips parting. It happened quickly. In the course of a breath Eivor was standing, the stool he’d been sitting on toppling over with a hollow  _ thunk _ . Sigurd’s hands fell to his sides as Eivor rose in front of him. He was so close.

_ Not close enough _ .

The moment hung between them. Sigurd didn’t know what to do with his hands, they suddenly felt like they didn’t belong to him anymore. He felt Eivor’s hands at his side, twisting in the fabric of his tunic. He was holding his breath again. Eivor leaned forward and gently pressed his face into the space underneath Sigurd’s jaw, his forehead warm against his neck, his nose nudging against his collar bone. Eivor’s hands seemed to pull him closer and push him away all the same time, like he couldn’t quite make up his mind about whether he should be this close.

“He called me that…'' Eivor whispered against his shirt collar. Sigurd finally breathed as Eivor broke the silence and leaned his head into Eivor slightly, testing the line of this new, level of intimacy. What he once would have felt was a closeness that conveyed innocent comfort, now had a heat behind it that had his stomach in knots and his pulse rising.

“He called me that just before I–” the grip on Sigurd’s shirt tightened and Sigurd felt a tremble tear through the man in front of him. He recalled the level of gore Eivor had left in the woods that day, how many wounds the body had had. The man had surely died before they’d all been inflicted. Sigurd realized Eivor’s shaking wasn’t sadness or fear, but rage. “Only you get to call me that. Only you get to–” 

With a heaving breath, Eivor released whatever anger had built up inside him, as if he were setting it free like a trained eagle. All at once Eivor pressed closer and lifted his head, angling it up. Sigurd’s heart stopped at the brush of lips against his jaw, not a kiss, just skin passing over skin. 

“Sigurd, what’s wrong with m–”

“Don’t. Don’t do that,” Sigurd interrupted him. His brain finally reconnected with his limbs and he raised his arms, resting the stretch of bone below his wrists on Eivor’s shoulders and curling his hands behind Eivor’s head, fingers weaving in his hair. “Nothing. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

He shook his head gently against Eivor’s. Eivor’s breath quickened against him and he pulled back slightly. Sigurd dipped his head forward and pressed their foreheads together, his thumbs stroking at the crescent of skin behind Eivor’s ears. Their breath hung between them, and the tightness in Sigurd’s chest felt like it would tear him apart, crack his ribcage open to make room for the beating of his heart.

“I thought I’d lost you all over again,” Sigurd whispered. “Seeing you laying there… I thought I might not get to–”

Words escaped him as Eivor angled his head to side, their mouths a breath apart.

“Get to what?” Eivor breathed.

Sigurd mouthed his name as Eivor breathed in through his nose and tightened his grip on the fabric at Sigurd’s side. Eivor pressed forward with a delicate confidence that was so painfully him, Sigurd thought he might weep. Warm lips touched his own; soft, but sure. Their bodies moved all at once. They breathed into each other. Sigurd’s hands tangled deeper in Eivor’s hair, as he pulled his body flush against him. 

Sigurd’s restraint dissolved as Eivor melted into him, pressing their mouths more fully together. It wasn’t wild and frantic, but Sigurd could feel the want radiating from him as Eivor moved his lips against his. He’d never expected the young man before him to be the one to break this tension between them, to push himself so squarely in the middle of it that Sigurd had to face it.

He felt Eivor’s tongue press gently against his upper lip.  _ Shit _ . Pushing his weight forward, he forced the other to stagger back a few steps, barely missing the upturned stool. They came to a halt when Eivor’s back came up against the tapestry covered wall behind them. Sigurd pulled back and slid one of his hands out of Eivor’s hair to curl around his chin, palm against the underside and his thumb and forefinger squeezing lightly. Eivor’s pupils were blown in the dim room, and he could almost make out his own reflection in their glassy surface. What a beautiful mess; a pink flush spread high across his cheekbones to the tip of his exposed ear, his mouth parted as he caught his breath, chest working against his own. Sigurd gently thumbed over his bottom lip.

Eivor pushed forward against the hand around his jaw, eyes closing trying to close the space between them once more. Sigurd wanted to give it to him, to let him take what he wanted, but he kept the distance between their lips.

“Your wound…” he mumbled. “It could open again.” It was only just starting to close and still not healed enough that their passions couldn’t tear it open again. Eivor let out a frustrated huff and locked eyes with him again. The stubborn, wonton look on his face had an immediate effect on the hardness growing in his trousers. Gods help him. Nothing and no one in his life had ever set him aflame like this before.

“But Sigurd…” he breathed. Sigurd released his jaw, and slid his hand down the front of his throat, letting it rest high on his chest. He tightened the grip he had on Eivor’s hair just enough to pull his head back and to the side, exposing the stretch of bare skin there, now elongated more by Eivor’s new haircut. Eivor let out a breathy sigh as Sigurd leaned forward, dragging his lips across bruised skin. The blond swore and bucked his hips against him, his arousal pressing against Sigurd’s hip.

“Fuck,” Sigurd whispered against the shell of Eivor’s ear. He felt hands slide up his back, fingers digging into the hard muscle around his shoulder blades. Another press of his hips against Eivor earned him another breathy moan. “You’re hard.”

The words were thrilling and vulgar, surprising even himself in their bluntness. But the way Eivor dug his fingers into his back, pulling him closer like he wanted to crawl inside him had Sigurd pushing him harder against the wall. He pressed his lips to Eivor’s temple, and worked his way down to his neck, only stopping to suck his earlobe between his teeth.

“Sigurd...,” Eivor gasped. Sigurd slipped his hand between them, and gently cupped Eivor’s erection through his pants. Eivor bucked in his hand. “I want you to–”

Sigurd pulled back, his hand still trapped between them, cool air replacing the heat that had built up between them. He kept his other hand at the back of Eivor’s head, pulling firmly but gently. He noted the hungry look in Eivor’s eyes when he tugged just a little bit. Sigurd slipped his hand under Eivor’s tunic, sliding it up to reveal the toned stomach beneath. 

“Hold it,” he grunted, nodding to the fabric he’d bunched up around the other man’s ribs. Eivor unwound his arms from around Sigurd and pressed the fabric against his chest with one and grabbed at Sigurd’s hip with the other. He fingered the waistband of Eivor’s pants, dipping his fingertips below the hem as he traced over the jutting curve of bone at his hip. “Have you been with anyone like this?”

Eivor shook his head, the flush in his cheeks deepening. “Not like this, not like–” He gasped into his words as Sigurd dipped his hand into the front of his trousers and palmed him firmly. 

Truthfully, Sigurd had only ever done this once with a man, and they’d both been so drunk he hardly felt it counted as experience. But he knew how he liked to be touched, how he’d imagined this in his dreams, and started there. The firm flesh in his hand was hot and soft. He stroked along the underside twice, before releasing the hand in Eivor’s hair so he could work his drawstring trousers down. Sigurd spit into his hand and wrapped it around Eivor in earnest, thumbing over the head, smearing pre-come over the soft pink flesh.

Eivor gasped, throwing his head back against the wall and digging his fingers into Sigurd’s hip hard enough to bruise. Starting off slow, he gave Eivor several firm strokes. It didn’t take long before Eivor was curling inward and surging against Sigurd, face pressing into his neck moaning his name.

“I can’t, I’m-”

“Come in my hand,” Sigurd encouraged him, quickening his pace. Several strokes later and Eivor was choking out a cry, his orgasm hitting him hard. Hot liquid spilled into Sigurd’s palm and sent a pearly streak across Eivor’s belly. Sigurd marveled at the way his body contracted, and pulled at him desperately. He worked him through his pleasure, slowing his pace and stopped when Eivor took in a sharp hiss of air. He knew from his own experience how sensitive it could become. 

“Fuck…  _ Fuck _ ,  _ Sigurd _ ,” he felt him breathe against his neck. The room around them seemed to settle back into focus, both of them trying to catch their breaths, lust still raging in their hearts. But when Sigurd stopped to take a look at what he’d done, at the man he’d called  _ brother _ all his life, panting beneath him, shirt rucked up, seed spilled across his stomach with his name on his lips, his stomach knotted.

Shame rose like bile in his throat. What had he just done?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday!!!
> 
> What we've all been waiting for... Don't worry, sometimes things have to get messy before they get better. So much more to come!!!
> 
> Gonna share some sketches with next chapter!!!


	18. Eivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eivor realizes he's had enough.

#  **18**

##  _Eivor_

Eivor caught the panic in Sigurd’s eyes. Chest still heaving and blood still rushing from an extremely intense orgasm, he tried to calm himself. He’d never thought that they’d be here like this. He’d never even entertained the possibility that he might not be alone in his, well, at this point he figured he could call them desires. The source of pleasure in his dreams had had a vivid face for months now, despite all of his efforts to anonymize them or trick his brain into seeing someone else. 

But this… he never could have imagined that  _ this _ was what it could be like. He didn’t know where his boldness had come from. His actions were motivated by something so deep within himself he felt like he’d been across the room, watching someone else that looked like him press against Sigurd, brush their lips against his jaw.

He gripped at Sigurd’s hip, pressing his fingertips into the muscle and bone there. Sigurd looked down, his eyes dark and overcome with something that was starting to look an awful lot like regret. 

His stomach churned.

“Sigurd,” he started. The warmth under his fingers pulled away as Sigurd took a half step back. The hands that had just opened up a world for him that felt entirely new pulled away.  _ Shit. Shit. Shit.  _

He’d been so caught up in the feeling of it all, the warmth and pleasure, that he hadn’t thought about what came after. The line that had been drawn in the sand that kept him touching himself in the dark so as to keep something like this from happening was so swept over and trodden upon he could barely see it now.

Eivor could practically see Sigurd’s mind working; thinking through all the outcomes of what had just happened. The clever little cogs in his mind spinning and turning were almost audible over the crushing silence. 

“Sigurd…” he tried again. 

Sigurd took another step back and turned to the bed, pulling a discarded piece of clothing from it. He turned it over in his hands, knuckles going bloodless, eyes boring a hole through the fabric. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, steeling himself. Eivor noticed that the visible erection he’d had just moments ago was gone. 

Eivor’s heart was still pounding. He hadn’t had the courage to move, his pants still pushed below his hips, his softening cock falling limply against the waistband. He still had his shirt balled up in his fist. He watched Sigurd warily, afraid that the slightest movement would scare him, send him running. Stormy eyes met his own then, and Sigurd took a step toward him, holding the piece of clothing out to him. 

“For the—to clean yourself,” he said. Eivor took the fabric with a shaking hand and wiped the fabric over his abdomen. Letting his shirt fall, he tucked himself back into his pants and dropped the cloth to the ground. The silence in the room made the pounding of his own heart sound like the hollow thrum of a war drum in his ears. 

They stood like that, in silence, regarding one another in the aftermath of something Eivor had only known to be as earth shaking and axis tipping. Nothing in his life had ever felt so right, so like it was meant for him and him alone. The way Sigurd looked at him and breathed his name and touched him; all of it felt like it was especially for him. 

The taller man in front of him looked as though he was on the verge of fleeing. His weight had shifted to the balls of his feet and he was strung taught like a deer who’d spotted its hunter, but was too stupid to run. 

“Eivor, I’m s—“

“No,” Eivor took a hurried step forward, reaching out for Sigurd’s arm. Sigurd took a step back and looked away in a half-hearted attempt to retreat from him. “Please don’t… don’t—“

He didn’t even know what he was trying to say, but every voice in his head was screaming for him to make Sigurd stay. If he left–if he walked away now, they would never be the same. He caught the sleeve of his tunic and gently wrapped his fingers around his elbow. 

“Gods, Eivor, what did I...?” Sigurd’s voice caught in his throat and he seemed to shrink before Eivor’s eyes, his shoulders collapsing forward as he brought his free hand to scrub over his face. 

Did Sigurd not want this the way he did? It hadn’t seemed that way just moments before. Eivor had seen the hungry, wolfish look in his eyes; dangerous and loving. It would have scared him if it hadn’t also been one of the most arousing things he’d ever seen.

“You didn’t do anything. I asked you to.” Eivor tried to sound reassuring. But he’d never seen his brother like this before. Sigurd was always sure and confident. “Was I wrong?”

Sigurd looked at him from behind his hand and sighed. He shook his head, “No. You weren’t… I’m–Godsdammit.”

Eivor started as Sigurd suddenly wrapped his arms around him, pulling him against his muscular body. It wasn’t heated, just a simple embrace. He snaked his arms around Sigurd’s chest and breathed in against his collar.

Sigurd’s voice rumbled against him when he spoke, “You should get some sleep. You’re still healing.”

Eivor tightened his grip. He was suddenly struck by the feeling that if he were to let go of Sigurd, he would float away, like a boat whose mooring line had come free in the night. His stomach churned nervously. All of this was so strange and new and frustratingly exciting. But a sense of dread and uneasiness was starting to set in, souring the memory of his wanting fulfilled. 

“Will you stay?” The words left Eivor’s mouth before he could stop them, and he worried that it sounded desperate. Although truthfully, it was a little. That selfish streak he’d always had seared through him and left him with the single minded desire to keep Sigurd with him, to make him stay at all costs. Sigurd took a deep breath against him as he thought about it.

“For a bit,” he said finally. His voice sounded hollow and flat, like a deep fatigue had set in. Sigurd’s arms relaxed around him, releasing him and he nodded to the bed. Reluctant to let the moment go, Eivor dropped his arms and made his way toward it, carefully laying down onto his back. He watched Sigurd blow out the candles around the room, the light around them slowly dwindling into a soft, murky darkness. Sigurd’s broad figure moved like a shadow separated from its maker. He lingered listlessly by the side of the bed for a moment, wavering on the edge of something Eivor could not see before he sighed and sat down on the mattress. Eivor felt the bedding sink under his weight as he laid down beside him.

There was only silence and a space between them. Eivor’s heart clenched. He would have given anything to know what was going on inside Sigurd’s head. Eivor slowly turned his head to the side to look at Sigurd, and caught the sharp, proud outline of his profile; his eyes were open and he was staring into the darkness above him, unblinking.

“I have some business to attend to tomorrow. I’ll be gone at first light,” Sigurd whispered into the void above him. Tears pricked behind Eivor’s eyes. So, the deer was not too stupid to run after all. His throat worked, trying to say something, anything, to get Sigurd to stay; but nothing came out. Instead, Eivor rolled over, away from the man he’d called brother for most of his life and wondered if the word would ever feel right on his tongue again.

Suddenly, he felt Sigurd’s weight shift behind him and warmth enveloped him. Sigurd’s muscular arm wrapped around his middle and pulled lightly so that their bodies were almost flush together. He could feel Sigurd’s breath against the top of his head, and the tears that stung the back of his eyes started to burn. Sleep took him somewhere between trying not to cry and trying to resign himself to the fact that if Sigurd was still there when he awoke, it would be a miracle.

***

Eivor’s lack of surprise at the cooling space in his bed beside him when he awoke the next morning lingered bitter in his mouth. Even with Sigurd warning him about leaving at first light, waking up alone was a fierce blow to his gut.

He played over the night before in his mind. It had all felt so natural. Like there was no other way the events could have unfolded. But it had all come crashing down when Sigurd pulled away with regret in his eyes. A part of Eivor knew that he’d wanted more from Sigurd for a while, and he was still buzzing with how easy it had been to accept it, ask for it, to melt into, to want more, give more. Now, in the grey light of a pale morning, reality did not seem so sweet. This was never going to be easy. No matter how it all unfolded, nothing about this–whatever  _ this _ was between them, would be easy. If they hadn’t acted upon it, Eivor knew he would have suffered in silence, taking the table scraps of affection he was given and pretending like it was enough. But now that they had had a taste of each other, he was left equally frustrated by the uncertainty of it all. Anxiety and something like guilt struck him. Sigurd had said he hadn’t been wrong, but what if he had pushed them into something that should have remained untouched and unexamined? What if there was no fixing this? He was suddenly hit with the notion that he didn’t even know what the problem truly was, so the idea that it could somehow be fixed seemed wholly naive.

He did not know where they went from here. A deep nagging dread settled upon Eivor. Their passions had already left Sigurd a hollow shell of the man that Eivor knew him to be. He’d watched the man deflate in front of him, awash in a deep sea of the same confusions and uncertainty that he was drowning in himself. Sigurd had even done something he’d never done before. He’d  _ lied _ to Eivor.

The excuse of  _ matters to attend to _ was an empty, shallow lie that Eivor sensed the second it left Sigurd’s lips. What was worse, was that he knew that Sigurd knew that he wasn’t stupid enough to fall for it and had still given him that flimsy excuse anyway. If Sigurd knowingly lied to his face, it meant that something was terribly wrong. But while Eivor was clever enough to catch him in his fibs, he wasn’t sure he was so clever as to know what to do about it.

He gathered his wits and pulled himself together. He changed his clothes, and looked once more at his reflection in the shiny disc of metal that he’d found strewn on the floor. The haircut Sigurd had given him was striking. He pulled his long blonde locks to the side and leaned his head to the side, elongating the strip of bare skin that curved up and behind his ear. The memory of Sigurd’s calloused fingertips brushing across the virgin skin there, his tongue gliding along the shell of his ear, the whisper of his name breathed against his temple–he shook his head and dropped the metallic disc to the ground. The hallow  _ chink _ it made against the wooden floor breaking his attention and working to ease the blood that started to pool in his groin at the very memory of the night before.

Food. He needed to eat something. Maybe Sigurd had just left his bed, and not gone further than the breakfast table. He tried to keep his hopes up as he headed to the great hall, but it became abundantly clear that Sigurd meant to create more space between them than an empty bed when Eivor found Dag and Ake in the great hall eating their breakfast, a certain red headed  _ vikingr _ palpably absent. Dag eyed him cautiously.

“Alright there, Eivor?” 

Eivor nodded and looked around.

“Have you seen Sigurd?” Eivor asked. He thumbed at the edge of his tunic.

Dag shook his dark head and ran his tongue over his teeth mid-bite. “Nah, heard he took off somewhere before first light.” Before Eivor could ask his next question, Dag interrupted him, “And no, we don’t know where. Whatever it was, must have been important. Was in an awful big hurry. Surprised he didn’t say anything to yeh. You’re always at his heels like a lost pup.” With a sneering half grin and a sniff, he took another bite of his food. Ake just looked at Eivor warrily, like he’d break if he breathed too hard in his direction. 

“Right,” Eivor mumbled, turning on his heel and heading back to his room.

“Don’t worry. Sure he just needed to take a break from waitin’ on you hand and foot. Had it been any one of us got hurt, he’da had us back in the fray the next day. Ain’t ‘at right Ake?”

Dag eyed Eivor from under his thick brows.  _ What a twat _ , thought Eivor. Ake just nodded dumbly.

“Guess it pays to have the Jarl’s only son whipped enough for him to spend the night,” Dag raised an eyebrow.  _ Shit _ . How had he known? Maybe he’d seen Sigurd leave in the morning? “Did you braid each other's hair? Did he tell you a  _ bedtime _ story?” Dag twisted his voice into a mocking imitation of a mother cooing over their baby. Ake snorted.

“Fuck you,” Eivor muttered, turning on his heel and stalking back across the hall toward his room.

“What did you say?” Dag called after him, more mockingly than angry. Eivor knew he’d heard him.

“I said,  _ fuck you _ , Dag!” Eivor ground out through clenched teeth. Dag and Ake’s chortling laughter was drowned out by a ringing in his ears.

He picked up his pace, his breath starting to catch in his throat. Was he so pitiable that even Dag and Ake could hardly look him in the eye? Poor orphaned Eivor, son of a weak and ignoble jarl who betrayed his people with his dying breath. That’s what people thought. Was it so evident his weakness, so evident Sigurd’s coddling favor? Had he not held his ground in battle and survived? Had he not been training day in and day out to prove himself a worthy asset to the clan? Was Sigurd’s presence the only thing holding back what people truly felt about him?

It wasn’t like Dag was Eivor’s biggest fan, and certainly not vice versa. At times he even suspected that Dag was jealous of the attention and affection Sigurd afforded him. But the dismissive tone and way he’d mocked his and Sigurd’s relationship burned like hot coals. He crashed into his room, rage roiling in his gut. He stood in the middle of the floor, not really certain what he needed. He clenched his fists and squeezed his eyes shut. A silent scream ringing in his ears. He pushed hard at the stinging behind his eyes.

_ Enough _ .

The image of Sigurd overcome by darkness took over in his mind.

_ Enough. _

He saw himself clawing his way toward him, hopeless and desperate. He needed Sigurd to stay. He needed him to be here. 

_ Enough _ . _ Enough. Enough. _

A high pitched whine, something like the whinnying of a frightened horse overlaid atop a scream pierced through his head, drowning out the world around him.

“Enough!” he bellowed. He lunged forward and grabbed the stool from where it had been toppled over the night before and threw it across the room. It crashed against the wall and cracked, one of its legs splitting at the joinery, and fell to the floor.

_ Fuck this. _ Fuck Dag and Ake for treating him like that. Fuck the years of pitying stares and gossip. Fuck Kjotve. Fuck the man who dared use Sigurd’s private name for him. And fuck Sigurd for leaving, for giving him a taste and pulling the plate away before he’d had his fill. Fuck him for running. Eivor fumed. His chest was heaving and his body was pulled tight like a bow string. He was hurting in ways he did not know he could. Everything that had ever kept him awake at night or made him retreat to his quiet place in the rafters felt as though it was bearing down on him at once. He didn’t know where to start. He hated that the taste of Sigurd’s skin from the night before was souring in his mouth, turned by confusion into something that had him questioning whether he even  _ should _ want what his heart and body had so clearly and desperately wanted. 

_...if you do not know what you desire, then you cannot know the price for it... _

The words from his vision echoed in his head. Was this the price? Was losing his brother the price for wanting him so much? And it  _ was _ that, wasn’t it? Wanting. Desire. This was what he wanted. He wanted Sigurd. He’d wanted to touch him, feel those strong hands on him, like he’d never wanted anything before in his life. It was those stormy eyes that he’d been staring into for months in his mind’s eye as he came into his own hand. At least he could be honest about it now, which came as a small and bitter comfort. 

His fists were clenched so tight he was sure his nails had broken through the skin of his palms. With a heaving breath he grabbed his axes and bow and stalked out of his room toward the training grounds. A newfound resolve solidified within him. He would work his hands raw and bloody if he had to. He would give no one reason to speak to him the Dag had ever again. He’d make it impossible for anyone to turn away from him. Even Sigurd. He did not stop to think on how he had managed to stem his tears, and how finally, he’d been able to put a voice to his rage. Like the thin shell of ice on the water after the first freeze, something inside Eivor Varinson hardened. And it would be a long winter before spring bloomed strong enough to melt it away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the kind comments on the last chapter! I was so excited to share it. There are currently 21 chapters in "part 1". After that I think I'll be starting "part 2" under a new title that'll get linked to this.
> 
> I've included a little drawing in here! It's not really meant to be representative of anything in the story so far, just really wanted to draw these two, so I did. More of these to come... 
> 
> Hope you enjoy and have a great weekend!


	19. Sigurd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sigurd realizes he might just be a coward.

#  **19**

##  _ Sigurd _

It was shockingly easy to let the heat of the moment take him. And even easier, he now realized, watching Eivor’s sleeping form in the dim light just before dawn, to forget the less desirable things that came after. When you think you can have the pleasures of a moment forever, it’s hard to remember the responsibilities of life that linger on the other side. The fears and uncertainties of where you go from there; how it will all turn out. Eivor’s face looked strained even in his sleep, like fatigue had taken him just as he suffered an unpleasant thought. A part of him knew it was his fault. How could it not be? To do what he had done, then pull away. If he was left with the questions and confusion that he now carried, he could only imagine what Eivor must be feeling. And that’s what scared him most. He hated that whatever had grown between them, this thing he’d allowed to blossom in his chest, was already causing so much pain. It terrified him. Not knowing what to do about it terrified him. And Eivor’s boldness, his willingness, the way he yielded completely under his touch terrified him. 

_ Eivor _ terrified him. 

He knew what he was doing was stupid, even as he silently hurried from Eivor’s room, the warmth of Eivor’s bed still clinging to his disheveled clothes. He knew it would hurt in more ways than one. And he knew, as he stalked through the great hall towards his father’s room, that he was too cowardly to even do the thing he intended without seeking some kind of excuse. The words he’d uttered into the darkness just hours before were evidence of his cowardice.  _ I have matters to attend to _ . Horseshit. But a twisted part of him figured if he could create a justification for leaving, that it would somehow ease the pain for Eivor, and somehow, in the process, ease the guilt of causing that pain.

He stormed into his father’s room, “Father, I need you to send me away.”

“Sigurd, what in helheim’s blazes—“ Styrbjorn blustered groggily from his bed where he’d startled so badly he was half out from under the covers, hand on the blade he kept beside it.

“Give me a mission–a quest– _ shit. _ Just–I need to go,” Sigurd paced against the dimly lit doorway, his tall broad figure a murky specter in the gloom. 

“Gods, Sigurd. Have you eaten Fly Agaric again? Is that what this is?”

He growled in frustration. “No. I just need to go somewhere. To leave this place.”

“Sigurd go back to bed,” his father groaned, settling back. 

Sigurd stopped pacing, an idea starting to take shape in his mind. “Send me to find Kjotve’s training camp. We know he’s training new forces. The tactics they used in that ambush were new. He must have found aid somewhere. Send me to find out what it is.”

His father stirred again, rising to his feet suddenly. With a speed that surprised Sigurd, his father was upon him, pushing him back against the wall by the door frame with all the strength of a retired, but no less strong,  _ drengr _ . 

“I do not know what has gotten into you, but you had better get it out quickly,” his voice was low and clipped, the voice he reserved only for chastising misbehaving sons. “I will not send you to spy on your own. Do you know what would happen if you were to get caught? It would be cause for all out war.”

Sigurd seethed against the arm pressed across his chest. “And you think you can avoid war by taking it like a bitch in heat? You rest on your heels while our borders are challenged. You seek no justice for Troels and Hal and—“

“This is about Eivor.”

Sigurd stopped. His chest deflated against his father’s weight. 

“No, it’s not about– this is about the future of our clan!”

Lies. All of it. His father knew how close he was to Eivor. You could be blind and still see how close they were. Styrbjorn often lectured him on how soft he was on the boy, how easily Eivor was able to take the fight right out of him.

Styrbjorn eyed him sternly. His bowels turned watery under his fathers judgmental gaze. It was not often his father got like this. He’d written him off as a coward for so long, he’d forgotten how truly fierce the man could be. 

“Too long, I have given you a long leash. There is strength and then there is leadership. And I fear that you confuse one with the other. You need to understand that being the bravest warrior on the battlefield does not make men follow you. There is more to leadership than the cut of your blade or swing of your hammer. You will be Jarl one day, Sigurd. And it’s high time you start to understand where your priorities are.”

Styrbjorn released his grip on Sigurd and took a step back. His dark eyes stayed fixed on him. 

“My priorities are with the strength of our people and our lands. And as long as Kjotve and his men still have breath in their lungs we are not safe. How do you not see that?”

“You think I’m so foolish as to not understand their threat? You  _ truly _ think me so weak. That I sit here at my high table and do nothing because it pleases me?” His fathers eyes seemed to glow as his voice started to rise. “In case you have not stopped to take notice, our numbers dwindle. Each year we are less. Our allies grow scarce. We cannot withstand an all out war with Kjotve. So unless you have something useful to bring to  _ my _ table, I suggest you stop behaving like a spoiled child and go back to bed.”

Sigurd clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth together.

“I would rather go with your blessing, but know that I do not seek your permission.” Sigurd took a deep breath and held it, straightening his spine and squaring his shoulders, trying to regain his posture. 

“Then you are more lost than I thought,” his father said sharply and turned his back to him. The conversation was over.

Sigurd balled his hands into fists at his side and dug his heels into the floor. With a frustrated growl he quickly side stepped his father and was stalking his way back across the great hall. His stomach knotted horribly as he passed Eivor’s room. 

How had it come to this? Lying, begging for any excuse to abandon the young man sleeping soundly just a few steps away. When did he become so pathetic? He paused for a brief moment. It wasn’t too late to stay. It wasn’t too late to creep back into that dim room and slip back under the blankets and press himself against the warm body that seemed to be the only thing that made him feel important. It wasn’t too late to forget about his cowardice. But then the image of Eivor panting under his hands flashed through his mind and whatever strength he had started to muster faded. He held onto the image long enough for it to shift to Eivor on the ground, covered in mud and blood. Somehow he was just as scared of losing Eivor now as he’d been when he’d come upon his unmoving body in the woods.

He clenched his fists tighter. He had never felt so painfully lost before. Maybe his father was right. Maybe he was just acting like a foolish, spoiled child. What was he trying to prove by leaving? He as much as threatened his father with going to confront Kjotve himself. Doing so would only prove that he was as arrogant and brash as people thought. But if he stayed, he’d have to face this; the lingering, unquenchable thirst for more he knew grew within him by the minute. He realized just then, that not only was he terrified of Eivor, but he was terrified of how much  _ more _ he wanted from him. Whatever last night was, had been just the start. He knew it. He could feel how much they’d wanted each other. But it was all wrong. There could be no more.

He didn’t know where he would go. It didn’t matter. But resolve set in and his feet moved once more, driven by a new kind of purpose. The detour to his own room to pack a bag was the only one he made before he headed for the stables. The travel supplies that he’d packed for the hunting trip were still there in the stall with his horse. Before he even had a clear destination in mind he was digging his heels into her sides and tearing through the quiet, misty dawn.

  
  


***

“Sigurd, one day I’ll be big enough to fight beside you, won’t I?” 

Eivor’s big blue eyes swam with a hopefulness that only the ignorance of youth could bestow. He was 11, and despite the horrors he’d already experienced, the young boy sitting beside him was so full of wonder for the world, Sigurd could hardly keep up. Every day with this little, strange ball of energy brought him joy. Sigurd marveled at the intensity with which his now brother interacted with the things around him. How he relentlessly and quietly tried to balance stones atop one another while making cairns. Or spend hours watching him train with Dag. And the questions–the never-ending questions!

Sigurd smiled down at him and ruffled a hand through Eivor’s sandy hair. “Of course, little raven.” 

They were sprawled before a fire. The cool night sky expanded overhead like Odin’s cloak, dark and mysterious. Green and blue ribbons from the aurora streaked across the sky. This was what Sigurd liked best. This was the calm and the peace he loved. He’d be joining his father’s drengr for the summer raids this year and knew fully that moments like this would soon come to an end. And while Eivor’s near-constant nagging and curiosity was sometimes a bother, he could hardly hold any animosity towards the young boy.

Eivor giggled and rolled over onto his back to watch the glowing sky ripple and twinkle. 

“When will it be?”

“Sooner than you think. One day you will wake up so big and strong that you’ll wonder how you were ever as small as you are now.”

Sigurd was leaning against a stone, Eivor’s small body stretched out beside him on a fur, their boots pointed towards the fire. He stared into the flames, the smoke curling and dancing up to the dark sky above. The world around him felt so vast, and yet the parts of it he’d seen so small. He knew there was more out there, beyond the mountains and the sea. He could feel in his bones that it was so. While others seemed content with the plot of land they laid claim to, their farms and huts, Sigurd longed for more.

“Do you remember being small like me?”

_Yes._ But, also _no._ It hadn’t been so long ago, but so much had happened in the span of a few years. So much growing up, violence… if only he could protect Eivor from it forever. He’d often worried if losing his parents would rob Eivor of his childhood. But here, with his eyes wide, the stars reflecting in their icy depths, that worry disappeared entirely. Here was the innocent boy, the wondering boy, the smart boy. Here was the child that kept him tethered to the softer things in life, to dreaming and finding beauty in the world. On nights like this, he could almost forget that night, not so long ago, where it felt like the stars above had all but abandoned them. He could almost forget the screams and how cold Eivor’s little fingers had been as he clutched them to his chest.

Sigurd looked down at Eivor again. He was watching him back quietly, waiting patiently for his reply.

“I was never so small!” he said teasingly, and suddenly leaned over and grabbed at his biceps playfully and startled tickling him. “Look at these skinny arms! Can you even lift a hammer with them?”

Eivor giggled with all the untameable wild exuberance of a river after a heavy rain. He could remember being as small, but never laughing like that; pure and trusting. Here was the child that encouraged him to love.

“I can! I can!” Eivor called out through his laughs, squirming under Sigurd’s hands. Sigurd chuckled and slowed his tickling. Eivor’s small chest worked to catch his breath, small, happy tears at the corners of his eyes, the small freckles on his face more noticeable under the blush that dusted across cheeks.

Sigurd leaned back again, smiling. “Tomorrow I will teach you some footwork. You must learn the basics. Maybe then I will send you to Gunnar in the afternoons. You’ll get strong helping him at his forge.”

Eivor perked up at the invitation to start a little bit of training.

“You’ll train me? You promise?” he said excitedly, lifting himself to his elbows.

“Yes. We’ll do it together.”

Sigurd knew how much Eivor idolized him and copied him and followed him as a shadow would, albeit a much smaller one. But what Sigurd felt Eivor did not know was how much Eivor meant to him. That violent night had changed everything. It had given Sigurd something outside of himself to care about, that was his, and his alone. A brother. It was a simple reframing; a fork in a road that suddenly made this small person beside him more important than anything else. Before that night, he’d often found Eivor annoying. But now it was different. Now he was his responsibility. His to care for and protect.

“All of this…” Sigurd started, his hand reaching out and spanning across the night sky. “We do all of this together. Whatever lies beyond those mountains, we see together. Whatever adventures are in store for us, we seek together. Whatever glory awaits, we claim together. Whatever enemies dare challenge us, we fight together.”

“Together?” Eivor looked up to the sky as if seeing all their adventures and glory unfold before his wild, hungry eyes.

“Aye. Together, little raven.” Sigurd smiled at him. He knew it was a promise he might not be able to keep. But it was one he intended to honor as much as their uncertain futures would allow.

“Sigurd, do you remember how you told me that one day, when I am old enough, and we can fight together, that you would be my axe, and I your bow?”

He had said that. And if he recalled correctly, it was after teasing Eivor for being so small. Eivor’s pouting face had made him instantly regret his words, and he covered them up by adding that because he was small, he would be quick and agile. The perfect makings of a fine marksman.

“Yes, I remember. Two ravens, blessed by the gods and fated for glory.” 

A log shifted in the fire and crackled, sending sparks flying towards the sky. Eivor rolled onto his belly and reached for his pack. Sigurd watched him rummage around and roll back over so he was sitting beside him, his small hands clutching something to his chest.

“I made these for you.”

Eivor held out his hands and uncurled his fingers, revealing two small wooden figurines. Two ravens; one with an axe in its talons and the other clutching some arrows. They were crude in a charming sort of way, with attempts made at defining the wings and feathers. The arrows were simply a bundle of dried pine needles stuffed into a hole through the feet, but the effect was there. 

Sigurd felt something click into place; like a carpenter removing the final burr from a piece of wood so it could fit snugly together with another. Looking down at the two small figures stoked a warmth in his heart. 

“Is that us?” Sigurd said quietly. He reached forward and plucked the raven with the arrows in its grasp from Eivor’s hand, turning it over in his fingers delicately.

Eivor nodded at the one Sigurd now held. “That one’s me. And this one is you.” He held up the second figure for Sigurd to take.

“No, you keep it.”

“But I made them for you,” Eivor protested.

“But see, this way, I can take  _ you _ wherever I go,” he wiggled the Eivor raven in his fingers. “And you get to take  _ me _ wherever you go.” Sigurd reached forward and closed Eivor’s fingers around the axe-wielding raven. Eivor looked at him and smiled slowly.

“You’ll take it with you everywhere?”

Sigurd nodded, “Until you are old enough to join me, it shall fly with me wherever the winds take me.”   
  
Eivor giggled and pressed the Sigurd raven to his chest. “I like that.”

Sigurd turned the raven over once more in his hand and estimated the amount of hours Eivor must have spent on them and how with a simple gesture he was handing over a small piece of his young life to him. He could picture Eivor sneaking away to work quietly on them, pouring all of his focus into each cut and scrape of a blade.

Nights like this were becoming a rare commodity. The older he got the less time he had to slip away for a night of camping. The responsibilities that came with the five years he had on Eivor would likely separate them soon, but he knew he would do anything to find his way home, back to this curious creature who had somehow managed to tame his wild, brazen heart. Until Eivor was old enough to join him, they would have to make do with the time they had together.

“Will you tell me a story before we sleep?”

Sigurd pulled a fur from his pack beside him and spread it over them both. As he began recounting one of the stories his mother used to tell him, Eivor curled up beside him, the raven that was meant to be him cradled softly in his hands.

He did not know what the fates had in store for him. But what he did know, as he watched Eivor close his eyes and felt his small beating heart beside him, was that here was the thing he would fight for. And maybe one day, even die for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Saturday!!! Hope y'all are staying safe and warm out there!


	20. Eivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eivor tries to cope with his Sigurd's disappearance.

#  **20**

##  _ Eivor _

  
  


_ Three weeks. _

It had been three weeks since he and Sigurd had crossed a line neither of them had intended to cross. Three weeks since Sigurd had left Eivor’s bed empty and cold, with nothing but a bittersweet taste on his tongue and a lingering hunger for something that seemed increasingly unobtainable.

He could feel the shift inside himself; the inward, curling feeling of retreating to the darker parts of his mind. What started off as a fiery rage, fueled by confusion, betrayal and frustration had dulled to a numbness. He spent his days training. Countless hours of target practice, sparring, and physical exertion in the elements. Each day that passed grew colder as winter took hold. To mask the relentless, seeping feeling of loss he felt, he did the only thing he knew how to cope; focus on something to such a degree that there was no room left for anything else. So, from sun up to sun down it was the same thing. Training.

His body constantly ached, and more than once had he returned to his room with his hands bloody; the skin so dry and calloused from gripping his bow or axe handle for hours on end that it simply split apart. Now that the cold weather had started to sink in, he had started climbing more regularly. The rock was now almost sticky in the chill morning air. He liked the pain in his fingers as the rock bit into his skin, how his arms would shake. He liked the thrill of the danger of falling. The headspace he entered when he climbed high enough that falling would surely mean death helped him forget the kinds of pain he took less pleasure in.

It was in the darkness, when there was nothing to trick his brain into forgetting, though, that he suffered the most. When night settled and the quiet claimed all signs of life around him, was when his mind wandered. He hated that the heat in his groin did not dissipate and that the nagging feeling in his stomach was not fettered in the slightest by Sigurd’s departure. He hated himself for giving in to the naive notion he might, still yet, get what he wanted, for thinking that Sigurd would come back at any moment and press himself against him without any kind of restraint or reason… He hated that if he let go just enough, relinquished just enough control, he could trick himself into thinking his calloused hands were not his own.

Was this to be it forever, then? Silently and desperately trying to satiate a desire for something that he couldn’t have? If losing Sigurd was the price to pay, he couldn’t pay it. Nothing was worth losing him completely. Nothing scared him more. And yet here he was, on the precipice of that very fear becoming a reality; standing on the edge of a cliff, toes hanging off the edge and only a small sway away from falling.

No one knew where Sigurd had gone. No word, no messages. Nothing. He could be dead for all anyone knew. And the not knowing was the worst part. He could deal with rejection and pain, but not knowing where they stood, where Sigurd was– that was a much harder potion to swallow.

It was nearly dusk. A silky, orange sky slowly yielded to the soft caress of night. The chitter of summer bugs was but a memory of warmer days, replaced by the crisp and hollow whisper of a chill breeze through slowly molting trees. Eivor had spent all afternoon working on his close quarters axe combat by himself. None had dared to interrupt his work. Overcome with a wave of frustration, he pushed over the dummy he’d been working with, straddling its waist and began wailing on the dummy’s head with all the force he could muster. His heaving breaths and grunts grew louder with each swift and forceful blow.

Vili watched from across the training grounds. It had been like this for weeks now. He’d watched as something soured in Eivor, as the usually mild and thoughtful friend he’d come to know railed against invisible demons.

With one final blow, Eivor sunk his blade deep into the wooden base of the dummy, the hilt sticking straight up. He sank back on his heels, breathing hard, shoulders slumping forward as his hands went limp at his sides.

“I think you got him,” Vili said as he approached slowly. Eivor looked up at him, sweat beading at his brow. He squinted up at his friend as he tried to force air back into his lungs.

“What makes you say that?” he said between breaths.

“I dunno. Twelve strikes the head? Call it a lucky guess.”

Vili smiled with a sheepish half grin, like he wasn’t entirely sure Eivor wouldn’t topple him to the ground and go for round two. To Vili’s surprise and relief, Eivor smiled and chuckled. It was the first moment of levity he’d seen Eivor give in to since Sigurd had disappeared.

“Wanted to be thorough,” Eivor replied cheekily. He pressed his hands to the ground and pushed himself up, rising to one knee, then finally to standing. His tunic was sweat-soaked, and he looked as though it had been more than a few days since he’d bathed. It was pretty clear that Eivor was not taking his brother’s absence well.

Vili’s gaze cast about warily. Eivor knew he’d been distant. He hadn’t sought Vili out to train with, and took his meals to the rafters or his room where he could sulk alone. A part of Eivor actually felt guilty about how he’d avoided Vili. Whatever it was that he was going through didn’t mean he could be a total arse to the only other person who’d really cared about him.

They both spoke at once, “Do you–”

They both paused, surprised at their remarkable timing and laughed. Some of the tension in Eivor’s shoulders melted, his laughter a balm of sorts on the stress he’d been carrying there. It felt good to laugh.

Vili spoke first, “I was going to say, do you want to eat together?”

“That would be nice,” Eivor said. He smiled as he wiped the sweat from his brow.

“Alright, but only if you bathe first.” Vili gave Eivor a teasing look and clapped him on the arm. “The cooks might mistake you for one of Winnifreyd’s pigs and try to roast you for dinner.”

“Fine. But only if you convince Gunnar to sneak us some ale, eh?” Eivor said, playfully side-checking Vili, knocking him off balance.

“Now you’re speaking my language,” Vili replied, returning the shove.

  
  


***

Vili wore normalcy well. Everything about the way he spoke and laughed felt so casual and natural. There was no ulterior motive, no weight to any of their conversations. He smiled openly and freely, never asking for anything in return. With the way things had been for the last several weeks, it was a relief to finally feel like something wasn’t going wrong or spinning wildly out of his control.

Indeed Vili had managed to get Gunnar to pilfer them some ale, and so the two of them sat in the rafters above the great hall while the others ate. Styrbjorn had been pretending nothing was the matter, much to Eivor’s increasing frustration. If he knew where Sigurd had gone, he wasn’t letting slip the details. But Eivor reckoned that more than likely, his surrogate father had, in fact, absolutely no idea where in the nine realms his son was.

The only thing anyone knew was that he’d left in the early hours of the morning headed northeast of Fornburg. But that did little to narrow down the possibilities. No one else knew what had happened that night. No one knew their secret.

Vili took a long drink of ale and leaned back against the grain sacks behind him. He’d crossed his long legs in front of him and with a dopey, soft smile on his face, he looked the very picture of a man with very few cares in the world. Eivor sat across from him, his shoulder pressed to the wall that divided the lofted storage space from the great hall below. There were gaps where the wooden planking didn’t quite touch and he had an unhindered view of Styrbjorn sitting upon his great chair at the head of the hall. 

Just then, a man swiftly approached Styrbjorn. He was cloaked with a dark fur wrapped around his shoulders and mud on his boots. A rider. Eivor watched as the cloaked man leaned down and hurriedly whispered into the Jarl’s ear. Styrbjorn’s face remained stoic as he received the news, then soured as the man pulled away and stood at attention, as though awaiting a new order. Styrbjorn said something and nodded, and the cloaked rider retreated, returning to the night, as quickly as he had come.

“What news?” Vili’s voice broke through the silence. Eivor turned and realized he had been holding his breath. His hand was tightly clutching the ale horn he held. Vili must have noticed the tension that had suddenly gripped Eivor because a look of concern passed over his dark features, pulling his striking brows together. 

It had been like this for weeks now. Riders coming and going. All had been tasked with finding their errant heir, and none had been successful. Tonight was no different it seemed.

Eivor looked down at his hands, and slowly willed himself to loosen his grip. He shook his head.

“I’m sure he’ll be back,” Vili said cautiously. “Just a bit unusual for him to take off like that.”

It was. From the outside it would seem very strange for Sigurd to just up and leave. Rumors had been spreading. Everything from secret love affairs to seeking revenge personally for the attack on his men. While Eivor noticed the riders giving their reports, few others seemed to connect their hushed words with the Jarl with Sigurd’s disappearance.

This was the first time anyone had actually engaged with Eivor on the matter of his brother’s disappearance aside from that unpleasant morning altercation with Dag. Eivor wasn’t even entirely sure what to say. He’d managed to make some sort of tacit peace with the situation, but every time he saw a cloaked figure riding by, his heart leapt at the thought that there might be news, or better yet, that Sigurd would be just a few yards behind. He was angry still, to be sure, but at some point, concern and loneliness took over.

“Eivor…” Vili started again. His voice seemed unsure, and he leaned forward, bending his legs to sit cross legged. “This has been hardest on you most of all, I think.”

Eivor looked at him warily but didn’t say anything. What could he say? Of course it had been. No one could possibly know how complicated everything had gotten. This wasn’t just his brother disappearing in the night… it was more. It was his–he didn’t even know  _ what _ to call Sigurd anymore–disappearing in the night.

“You two have always been close. You’d have to be an idiot to not see that.” Vili scooted himself across the floor so that he could lower his voice, but was cautious to not get too close. “Do you really not know where he went?”

Eivor shook his head once more and fixed his gaze on the dark insides of the ale horn in his hand. A part of him wished he could jump into that darkness and disappear. He didn’t want to be having this conversation. He didn’t want to think about any of this more than he had to.

“I–” Vili paused and lowered his voice more. “I see the way you look at him.”

Eivor snapped his head up. His eyes darkened and he pulled his eyebrows together.

“What are you trying to say?” he said slowly. He wanted to snap, but he also didn’t want to reveal more than was necessary by being defensive.

“Nothing… Just–” Vili scratched at the back of his head and averted his eyes, like he was circling something in his mind that he just didn’t know how to articulate. “I dunno. You just don’t look that way at anyone else.”   
  
“And how is it that I look?”

_ Tread lightly, wolf-kissed. _ The voice that was his own but not seeped into his mind.

Vili thought for a moment. A heaviness filled the air between them. Vili couldn’t know, could he? They’d never acted as anything more than brothers in public.

“It’s like you always know exactly where he is… like you can sense him.”

“We’re brothers.”   
  
“No, I know. But it’s like you move as one sometimes. I watch you train together. You are so aware of each other. I can only imagine what a force the two of you will be in battle. To have someone that understands the way you move and think so completely is an incredible boon.”

Eivor let out a small sigh of relief, the conversation turning toward training and being a good match on the battlefield and away from the insinuation that their connection was something more intimate and forbidden. But the relief that Eivor felt at not having the darkness he held in his heart discovered was short-lived as Vili’s words sank in.  _ To have someone that understands the way you move and think so completely _ . Gods if only that were true… he would give his eye like Odin to be able to see what went on in Sigurd’s head.

“We do fight well together, I suppose.” Eivor replied, leading the conversation away from the memory of Sigurd’s raging heartbeat pounding against his own chest.

“I guess I’m just jealous,” Vili snorted and laughed into his ale horn. “I’ve always wanted a brother in arms like that. A strong  _ drengr _ is made stronger by the company he keeps and the trust he has in his brothers.”

“I trust you, you know,” Eivor said. And it was true. They’d grown closer over the past year, and while Vili was praising his connection with Sigurd, it wasn’t like he and Vili were out of sync when they trained together. Vili had excellent awareness, and he and Eivor made a great team. “I would be honored to fight beside you.”

Vili smiled, the lightness and ease he wore so well returning to his eyes.

“I know. And I, you. We do make a good team. Just two ravens with axes, eh?”

Eivor smiled, but suddenly a thought struck him like lightning from Thor’s hammer.  _ Ravens with axes. _ He rubbed a hand over his bicep where the tattoo was scrawled over his skin, a raven with an axe in its talons  _ (*see author’s note at end) _ .

“Vili, I’m sorry. I have to go,” he said quickly.

He let his ale horn slip through his fingers, but he did not hear it hit the floor. He was already gone, climbing down the ladder and crossing the great hall. He only paused long enough to make sure that no one was watching before slipping into Sigurd’s room.

It was dark and untouched, just the way that Sigurd had left it. The bed was unmade and clothes were strewn about as though he’d left in a hurry. Eivor had not even thought to enter Sigurd’s room. Somehow it felt too personal to do so. But now, as he moved through the dark room, the smell of Sigurd still lingering in the air, he wondered why he hadn’t thought to do it sooner.

He approached the bed and sat down on the left side where he knew Sigurd always slept. Eivor’s heart pulled tight in his chest. Something was missing from the small stool Sigurd used as a side table. As he sat in the dark room staring at the empty place where the small wooden raven should have been, his breath hitched in his chest.

He knew where Sigurd was.

***

Eivor was a curious and meticulous child. The trauma he’d experienced–the loss of his parents at such a young age–had left scars. And not all of them were visible. The months following Kjotve’s attack were a tumultuous maelstrom of change and emotional upheaval. Everything he’d ever known was ripped from his small fingers and replaced with a terrifying darkness that threatened to swallow him whole. It took weeks for him to physically recover. He’d lost so much blood that night on the ice that the healers were not sure that he would make it through the night. But he did. And he made it through the next day, and the day after that. One of the few things he would remember from this time, years later, was how Sigurd refused to leave his side.

Up until that night, Sigurd had been simply an older boy who Eivor often pestered and who, in return, did his best to ignore him. He had just been Sigurd Styrbjornson, son of the King, heir to the Raven Clan, nothing more, nothing less. Sigurd was the boy that Eivor got handed over to when their fathers went raiding. He’d always felt like an annoying child next to the older boy who seemed far more interested in stealing ale with his friends and making eyes at girls. But after that night, after Sigurd had saved him more than once, things changed. Sigurd became more patient with him, would sit with him quietly on the docks and fish with him. Eivor’s heartache lessened when Sigurd was around.

Sigurd did not fuss or pry. That’s what Eivor liked about him the most in those weeks while he recovered. While everyone else fussed over his injuries and looked at him with pity and sorrow, Sigurd would smile at him and ruffle his hair and bring him treats from the kitchen. When everyone else said “you poor thing” Sigurd asked him what adventure he wanted to have that day. When he was recovered enough to get out of bed, Sigurd took him everywhere with him. Where once Sigurd would roll his eyes and begrudgingly take Eivor along with him, now he welcomed the small boy openly into his life.

The news that Styrbjorn would formally take Eivor into his care as his adopted son only served to further cement the bond that had formed between them. Even at such a young age, Eivor knew that without Sigurd, he had nothing. It was a morbid thing for such a small person to think in such absolutes. He’d never thought much about what it meant to be alive, and even less so about what it meant to die. The stories he’d heard about Valhalla and Odin’s great hall and golden fields where an endless, glorious battle took place each day had captivated him, but he always felt like it was rather silly for grown men to vye so hard to go to a place they’d never even seen. Why did people spend so much time thinking about what happened  _ after _ they died? Sigurd had told him he was too young to understand, and perhaps he was right. But what Eivor did know was that he liked the world around him well enough as it was. This world had fish to catch in wild streams, and neat rocks to find on the beach, and beautiful flowers to admire in wide, sun-soaked fields. This world had warm, fresh-baked bread and the smell of winter before a snow storm and fireflies to catch in summer. There was no guarantee that what came after had all that; they were only stories, as far as he knew.

And this appreciation for the things he had is what made him the thoughtful and quiet boy that was so easily misunderstood. He liked climbing rocks with Sigurd, and watching bugs go about their business, and searching for interesting shells on the beach. He liked trying to come up with names for things he didn’t have words for; like the color of the sky in the early morning before a storm broke, or the sound of waves passing over his bare ankles. They were particular things that he enjoyed, small things that most people were too busy to feel or revel in. To Eivor, this quiet way of experiencing life was as natural to him as breathing, but to anyone looking in, it made him seem odd and unhurried. Few adults around him had the time to appreciate such things as how the light would shine just so off the small cresting waves at sunset, and fewer still had time to indulge Eivor’s curious questions.

Except Sigurd. 

Sigurd was the only who stopped to admire a particularly interesting rock or cloud that looked like a great sea beast with him. Eivor never once felt shy about asking his questions or tugging on Sigurd’s shirt sleeve to point at a patch of small purple flowers that had caught his eye.

To Eivor’s young mind, the man that he now called brother was invincible and wise, like Odin himself, possessing all the knowledge of the world. No one claimed such unwavering admiration from him as Sigurd did. They were quite the pair. Sigurd, the very picture of a strong, brave warrior–a raven not yet in his prime, but fierce nonetheless–and Eivor, the quiet, introspective orphan that left people uncomfortable with his observational gaze and quizzical manner.

No one could have known, not even them, how intertwined their fates truly were. 

And so it was that Eivor was an enigma of a child that few knew what to do with. No one paid much mind to him as he rummaged about the shipyard looking for scrap wood. No one thought twice about him being absent from dinner, and no one noticed his commandeering of the storage loft above the great hall.

For most 11 year olds, staying focused on a single task for any great length of time would have been a challenge. But for Eivor, the single mindedness that came from funneling all of himself into a particular activity was calming. He had discovered that allowing something to take over his mind so completely helped drown out his darkness. This time, it was two small pieces of wood that held his fascination. He’d pulled them from the cast-offs at the shipyard. The way the soft wood peeled away in short, smooth curls as he carved his blade into it and the sound of metal scraping against wood dulled the sounds of screams and howls and shattering bone in his head. Finding the form of something where it had not been before brought him a sense of quiet joy.

“I will be the axe, and you the bow, brother,” Sigurd had said to him one day, not long ago. “You see, you may be small, but you are quick and will make an excellent marksman one day. You have keen eyes. I will need you protecting my back. What a pair we will make when you are older. Two ravens, blessed by the gods.”

Sigurd’s words were a vision of what those two scraps of wood would become.

Long hours were spent in his hiding place above the great hall. Whenever he felt confident that he could slip away unnoticed to work on his project, he would climb the ladder and pull the two lumps of wood and his knife from under a woven sack cloth where he’d hidden them. He knew Sigurd was nosy, and he didn’t want his surprise to be ruined. Sigurd’s birthday was coming up and he intended to give him the ravens as a gift.

As the days passed, the form of the birds took shape. Their heads emerged and he found their beaks. He took his time, being careful to make small cuts. Hasty decisions would ruin them. The final touch to them had been the axe and the arrows. The axe he made separately from a small piece of wood and shoved it through a hole he’d made in the feet. But the arrows were more challenging, more delicate. For days he cast about Fornburg, looking for the perfect twigs or trying to devise a clever way to make them himself, but nothing felt right. It wasn’t until he’d tripped in the woods one day and landed headlong into a pile of brush that he found the solution in a pile of drying pine needles. 

They weren’t perfect, in the sense that they were delicate. But he liked the idea that they could be easily replaced when they broke. With a small handful in his pocket, he eagerly awaited his next opportune moment to sneak away so he could put the finishing touch on the raven that was meant to be him when he grew older.

_ There _ , he thought when the small bundle of pine needles was pushed through the hole. They were done, and a swell of pride rose in his small chest. Now, all that was left was to actually give them to Sigurd.

He heard a scraping noise, leather on wood, and looked up with just enough time to see Sigurd’s red hair crest the top of the ladder. He plunged his hands behind him and tucked the ravens under some straw.

“Eivor, where are y–Ah! There you are!” Sigurd startled as he laid eyes upon Eivor, who looked flustered and mildly guilty. The older boy’s feet were still on the ladder, his bottom half obscured below the floor. He leaned forward, eyes narrowing suspiciously as he crossed his arms on the floor and leaned into them. “What are you up to, little raven?”

Eivor’s eyes widened, as if he’d been caught stealing biscuits from the kitchen. Sigurd’s mouth tugged into a mischievous grin, pulling up on one side knowingly.

“Nothing!”

“You know you’re a terrible liar.”

“Am not!”

Sigurd burst into laughter.

Eivor liked when Sigurd laughed. It was one of the sounds he kept trying to come up with a special word for. But nothing felt like it captured the resonant tone. He felt his own laughter rising in his chest.

“Well, whatever it is that you’re  _ not _ doing up here can wait. Come down to dinner. We must pack afterwards.” 

Sigurd smacked one of his hands on the wooden floor before moving to descend the ladder.

“Pack? Where are we going?”

“Aye. I found a place for us to go camping tomorrow.” Sigurd stopped and raised an eyebrow at him. “You didn’t forget my birthday, did you?”

Of course he hadn’t. Eivor nodded his head furiously, a blush creeping across his pale cheeks.

“Good! We leave in the morning.”

And with that, Sigurd’s red hair disappeared below the hole in the floor and Eivor was left alone once more. He twisted himself around and pulled the two small ravens out of the straw. He took a final look at his handiwork before tucking them into his tunic. A camping trip with Sigurd. It was the perfect time to give him his gift.

A small smile pulled across his lips as he crawled to the ladder to follow his brother down for dinner. He definitely liked this world. This world had Sigurd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I changed the tattoo that Eivor has back in chapter 2. This is part of some of the small changes I"m making to the story as a whole.
> 
> Sorry for the slightly late post. I last minute decided I wanted to add the Eivor flashback scene. I think it help sets some stuff up I want to cover in part 2, and better serves to give Eivor's perspective of their earlier relationship.
> 
> Hope you have all had a restful weekend!


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